BT and Sky Get Virgin Media Ads Banned for Misleading Price Claims

The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has once again banned several adverts for Virgin Media’s various broadband, phone and TV bundles after BT and Sky Broadband (BSkyB) complained that the operator misrepresented the pricing and potential savings of its packages.

This week’s rulings actually stem from two separate investigations (REF: A14-270704 and A14-273731) against several of the national cable operators adverts. In the first report, BT moaned that a direct mailing advert for Virgin Media’s triple-play TV bundle was misleading because it claimed to give consumers a “special offer” with “SAVING WORTH UP TO £162” and made multiple references to costs of “£00.00” for service features like catch-up TV, BTSport and TV-on-demand; most of which were already included as standard as part of the normal monthly price.

ASA Ruling (Ref: A14-270704):

Whilst we noted Virgin Media’s assertion that some of the elements listed had been included in the bundle at no extra cost, we understood that some of the other elements were simply offered as standard, and therefore their cost was accounted for in the bundle price.

In addition, whilst we noted that some of the claims stated “included”, or “included with our Premiere Collection”, we still considered that the overall impression of the “£00.00” claims, particularly given their prominence in comparison to the explanatory text, was that the listed features of the bundle had been discounted to “£00.00” as part of the special offer. Because that was not the case, we concluded that the price claims were misleading.

In the second report (A14-273731), Sky Broadband and a member of the public challenged several aspects of a major TV advert (featuring the actor David Tennant) and a press advert, both of which were for Virgin Media’s Big Kahuna Bundle.

Sky complained that the TV advert, which among other things depicted a wall mounted TV showing a football match on Sky Sports and included on-screen text stating “Sky Sports subscription required from £17/month“, was misleading because it implied that Sky Sports was included in the advertised price. Crucially the TV advert ended with David Tennant giving a conflicting statement, “Get it all for just £30 a month for the first six months,” which was enough for the ASA to ban it.

Similarly a member of the public complained that the TV advert misleadingly implied that Virgin Phone Line Rental was included in the advertised price, which of course ending up being banned for exactly the same reason as Sky’s complaint (i.e. the cost of line rental was displayed, but the “get it all” statement at the end gave a conflicting impression).

Finally, a press advert for the same Big Kahuna Bundle stated that “Sky customers, we could save you over £370 a year” and made mentioned of a £49.95 installation fee in the small print. Naturally Sky wasn’t too pleased and attempted to get the promotion banned by suggesting that the installation fee hadn’t been factored into Virgin’s savings claim. The ASA agreed that the ad failed to give sufficient prominence to that information and banned it.

As usual the ASA warned Virgin Media, much as it has done oh so very many times before, to ensure that their ads were not likely to mislead consumers in future and to make sure that material information was given sufficient prominence. The operator was also told not to imply that elements of their bundles had been discounted, or offered for free, if that was not the case.