ASA bans new advertisement from Virgin Media

Broadband service provider Virgin Media has once again been hit by a complaint regarding a recent advert it mailed out to customers regard one of its broadband internet packages and the complaint has again been upheld by the ASA and the advert banned.

The advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a direct mailing promotion of a £4.50 per month broadband package from Virgin Media, one of the UK’s largest broadband internet service providers.

Due to a speed capping restriction that ran each day between the hours of 4pm and 9pm, which was impose through lengthy small print on the promotion, a recipient challenged the claims by the broadband provider of offering “unlimited downloads …as standard.” The disclaimer did not make this information clear according to the complainant.

The only customers that would be affected by this speed cap policy were, however, only a small percentage of those whose usage was very large explained Virgin Media. To ensure that the terms of this policy were more apparent the operator said that it would be happy to provide more information with regards to the small print on the advert. The findings from the ASA were that the small print in the advertisement was not noticeable straight away, although the claim made regarding the unlimited downloads would have been acceptable to the majority of Virgin Media’s customers.

Without making the peak traffic management policy clearer the watchdog was worried that the purchasing behaviour of customers would be influenced by the claims of unlimited downloads. Virgin Media have been warned by the ASA that the advert will not be allowed in its current layout.

Virgin Media were in trouble with the ASA recently for a similar issue, with BSkyB making a complaint regarding the wording of an advertisement for its 20Mbps broadband service, which was also upheld by the watchdog.