ASA reprimands Virgin Media over online campaign

It has been reported that the Advertising Standards Authority has reprimanded the entertainment and communications giant Virgin Media over a recent advertising campaign.

Virgin Media is a company that can usually do no wrong in the eyes of many people and industry groups. However, the media giant has recently found itself on the receiving end of a reprimand from the Advertising Standards Authority with regards to an advertising campaign that it was running recently.

The campaign accused rival providers of ‘conning’ customers according to reports, and was aimed at making changes to the way in which broadband providers advertised their services. The campaign was called ‘Stop the Broadband Con’ and it resulted in complaints from two rival providers, BT and Sky.

After the complaints were made the ASA ruled in the favour of the two rival providers, and has now told Virgin that it cannot continue to run the advertisement in its current form. The campaign made a lot of claims about rival providers with regards to the promises made by other providers and speeds that were promised by them. The campaign also encouraged users to tell their friends about this ‘con’.

In its ruling the ASA said: “We considered the ad went beyond highlighting the disparity Virgin believed existed between advertised broadband speeds compared to those that were delivered and implied that other ISPs dealt with consumers dishonestly in relation to broadband speeds.”

A BT official said: “This is incredibly embarrassing for Virgin Media: its campaign for the industry to use ‘average’ as opposed to ‘up to’ speeds relied on misleading broadband users to make its point.”

Source – BBC