Advertising Standards Authority bans BT’s new broadband ad for misleading claim

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned BT from using – in its current composition -  its new advertisement for its broadband service.

The advertisement in question is in the ‘Nescafe Gold Blend narrative’ genre, centred on a property search by a couple – Jane and Adam.

In a gesture to political correctness, the microdrama features a spot of gender reversal with the man being shown around a prospective home by an estate agent – coincidentally at peak time for internet use – while his partner monitors and directs his visit remotely, through untroubled, fast online access to the web page on the property in question.

Complainants (17, including competitors) to the ASA have pointed out that the 20MB speeds claimed in the advertisement could not be substantiated.  Some (3) challenged the achievability of the speed of the female character’s navigation regardless of the connection speed of the service.

The Advertising Standards Authority, in its adjudication leading to the banning of the ad as it stands, says: ‘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’.

It then listed a series of pertinent notes:

• that BT’s new service was available to less than 50% of all households
• that it is expected to take two years for the vaunted 20MB roll-out, which would then take the availability of the new service to 75% of households
• that a significant proportion of the population could not get the service at the time the ad appeared
• that, in the light of the point above, it considered that the ad should have made this situation clear
• that because this was not clarified, the authority concluded that the advertisement was likely to mislead.

In a statement it issued on the adjudication and the ban, BT said that it is disappointed by the adjudication, that it had no intention to mislead and that its purpose was simply 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’.

Caveat emptor is the name of the game.