BSkyB gets ASA reproach over unfair ads
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) recently issued a ban against airing of the BSkyB advertisement citing the unfair and misleading attacks on broadband companies BT and Virgin Media.
The internet speeds of service providers, along with concerned groups and individuals, raised their concern over the BSkyB campaign. The ad claims, “If you’re in a Sky network area, we don’t slow your broadband speed down at peak times – unlike Virgin Media and BT.”
The advertisement watchdog supported their decision to ban BSkyB, citing among others that only extremely heavy users would experience slower speeds during peak times, which is but an understandable connectivity and speed situations.
The ruling from ASA stated that the BSkyB campaign breached advertising guidelines on substantiation, truth and comparisons with competitors. It further issued a warning against the BSkyB to refrain from making similar unfair and misleading claims.
On the other hand, BSkyB retorted that all BT and Virgin Media subscribers could be likely affected by their fair use and traffic management policies. They argued broadband speeds of users exceeding “fair use” during peak hours would be experiencing what they claim. This particularly happens, said BSkyB when “heavy users” who are using on popular applications at busy periods with bigger bandwidths.
ASA explained that both BT and Virgin Media do not intend these slower peak-hours speed as implied by the BSkyB advertisement. The regulatory body stated that the public, particularly subscribers to the two internet service providers, would infer from the claim that their speeds are really affected and such slower connection is intended by the two providers.
Particularly to the consumers with low-bandwidth web browsing services, the BSkyB advertisement would make them think the services of both Virgin Media and BT are really slowing down their speed, even if such is not the case, ASA continued to explain.
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