August 27, 2010 by James Oliver
The Advertising Standards Authority have forced BT to withdraw their latest advert, following complaints that it was misleading for customers. The advert has been proven to provide false information regarding the speed of broadband which BT can provide.
The advert claimed that BT was ‘rolling out up to 20 meg speeds to give consistently faster broadband’. This has found to be untrue, following a series of complaints from both consumers and rival telecommunications firms in the UK.
BT has countered the decision with a statement suggesting that the advert was not meant to be misleading, and claiming that the advert never meant to show an actual comparison between their old service and the proposed new speeds. The claims about the broadband speed was followed up both in printed media and radio promotions.
The ASA commented: “Because we had not seen sufficient evidence to support the claim that BT’s new broadband service was consistently faster than its existing 8Mb service even at peak times, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead. Viewers can expect the internet speed demonstrated by the advert to be available to them, but this is not the case. We noted BT’s new service was available to fewer than half of all households and the roll-out, increasing that figure to 75%, was anticipated to take around two years. We noted that a significant proportion of the population could not get the service at the time the ad appeared and therefore considered the ad should have made that clear. Because it did not, we concluded that it was likely to mislead.”
BT countered: “We are disappointed by the ASA’s adjudication. At the time the ads appeared, BT had just started rolling out a new up-to-20Mb broadband service across the country and we wanted to highlight the higher speeds available in newly enabled exchange areas offering customers consistently faster web browsing in comparison to BT’s up-to-8Mb service. There was certainly no intention to mislead.”
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