Sky advert banned for slating rival broadband providers

A recent advertisement by the media and broadband giant BSkyB has been banned by the Advertising Standards Agency for slating rival broadband providers.

It has been reported that the Advertising Standards Agency has recently banned an advertisement by a major broadband and media giant because it slated rival broadband providers. The advertisement was by BSkyB and in it the company made references to rival providers Virgin Media and BT slowing down broadband speeds at peak times through throttling.

In the advertisement BSkyB said: “If you’re in a Sky network area, we don’t slow your broadband speed down at peak times – unlike Virgin Media and BT.” However, BT complained that it was only very heavy users that would have their speeds affected during peak times, and this complaint was upheld by the Advertising Standards Agency.

The Advertising Standards Agency did find that very heavy broadband users would be affected in terms of speed if they were with BT or Virgin, but added that the claim made in the advertisement by BskyB could lead customers to believe that all customers with Virgin and BT would be affected even if they were not heavy users.

The ASA said: “We considered that consumers would infer from the claim, ‘If you’re in a Sky network area, we don’t slow your broadband speed down at peak times – unlike Virgin Media and BT’, that BT and Virgin slowed down broadband speeds in peak times for all their customers, including those who used web browsing services with low bandwidths. We concluded that the claim was likely to mislead.” The ASA also said that the advertisement had breached regulations regarding truthfulness and substantiation, and that the advertisement could no longer be run.

Source – Guardian