Virgin censured over broadband ads again

 

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Posted on 2 Jul 2008 at 08:22

Virgin Media has once again been reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for misleading broadband adverts.

This time Virgin's controversial "traffic management" policy has landed it in hot water, after the company over-egged the time it would take customers to download a TV show.

Virgin's "hate to wait" campaign claimed that customers on its 'M' package (up to 2 Mb/sec) could download a song in 22 seconds and a TV show in less than 26 minutes.

The claims were pounced upon by rival internet provider BT, in yet another case of ISPs using the ASA as a political football. BT claimed Virgin's data caps would prevent customers downloading the TV show in the claimed time.

Virgin conceded that it had got its sums wrong, because the TV file size quoted in the ad was 341MB - which is over the peak-time data threshold of 300MB for M customers. Virgin said it would amend the ads to say that customers could download a TV show in 29 minutes.

That wasn't enough to satisfy the ASA which upheld the complaint. "We considered that the text 'Acceptable usage policy applies' did not make the peak-time restrictions clear and it would not be unreasonable for readers to expect to be able to download at least one half-hour TV show on the M package, or several half-hour TV shows on the L package, during the five hours of the peak-time period without breaching Virgin's traffic management system and having their speed capped," the ASA adjudication reads.

"Because that was not the case we concluded that the ad was misleading."

Repeat offender

It's not the first time Virgin Media has found itself on the receiving end of an ASA adjudication in recent times.

Last August complaints were upheld against Virgin on six different counts, ranging from misleading comparisons to rivals' services to misleading pricing in advertising.

And just a fortnight ago the ASA took exception to a Virgin advertising campaign that sent customers a plain letter with a bullet hole through it to advertise its broadband packages, after several recipients complained it was unsuitable during a period of rising gun crime.

Author: Barry Collins