Two broadband comparison print ads get Virgin Media in trouble again

Following on from a recent caution from the Advertising Standards Authority a few weeks ago Virgin Media is now finding itself hit with further complaints regarding adverts that are apparently misleading customer and offering implausible promises about the broadband speeds available to its customers.

Two complaints were recently made regarding a Virgin Media national press campaign for its broadband internet service that the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) were made to step in and uphold once again.

Referenced were made in a new advert as to what customers of Virgin Media could expect to get in terms of broadband connection speeds in comparison to the speeds of those using BT telephone line this time, which were apparently classed as “misleading” in the complaint made against it.

The first of these challenges made against Virgin Media’s ad campaign came strangely from BSkyB with the complaint that it was misleading customers with the statement “10 out of 10 homes with our fibre optic broadband can get 20Mb.” Due to the limitations of Virgin Media’s network capacity BSkyB argued that supplying 20Mbps broadband connection to all of its customers at the same time would be highly implausible.

A further challenge that the Advertising Standards Agency stepped in on was over the comparison between broadband service offered by BT and Virgin’s broadband service. The ASA rules that the following quote was inaccurate: “70 per cent of homes in the UK can’t get 8Mb over BT phone lines – source: Point Topic…All cable broadband enabled homes can achieve their ‘access line speed.”

Both of these complaints have been upheld which isn’t surprising considering that the ASA submitted one of them itself. A warning not to print the adverts in question in their current form was made to Virgin Media.