BT Gets O2 UK Adverts Pulled by ASA for Misleading Price Claims

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has, following a complaint raised by BT, banned two press adverts for mobile operator O2 UK after it promoted a special deal on a bundle with the Microsoft Surface Pro X and iPad devices, albeit without making all of the associated costs completely clear.

Both of the promotions, which were seen in February 2020, followed the same approach. For example, the press ad for O2’s iPad deal headlined with: “Chill out with the amazing iPad for less than £9 a month. For the first 3 months.” Small print at the bottom then added: “Each year your Airtime Plan will be adjusted on your April bill by the Retail Price Index (RPI) rate of inflation announced in the preceding February. Find out more at o2.co.uk/prices. £8.69 Device Plan for 36 months and £13 monthly rolling Airtime Plan.” Further text within the small-print added: “£8.69 per month for the first 3 months and £21.69 thereafter.”

However, the ASA noted that the small print at the bottom of the first ad featured “various different price claims relating to the device costs and airtime costs,” which makes for quite an ugly read. The above example stated “Upfront cost £20. Monthly Device Payment £8.69. Total Credit Amount £312.61. Total amount payable for device £332.61. Airtime Plan, today to March 2020 £13. Airtime Plan, April 2020 to March 2021. £13 + RPI announced in Feb 2020 = Price A. Airtime Plan, April 2021 to March 2022.” Further text within the body of the small print stated “£8.69 Device Plan for 36 months and £13 monthly rolling Airtime plan” and later “£8.69 per month for the first 3 months and £21.69 thereafter“.

ASA Ruling (REF: A20-1054615)

“While we acknowledged that bold text at the top of the small print stated “Each year your Airtime Plan will be adjusted on your April bill by the Retail Price Index (RPI) rate of inflation announced in the preceding February”, we considered that was not sufficiently prominent as the headline claim in the ad did not link to the qualification in any way.

Because the ads did not make sufficiently clear the upfront costs and the monthly costs of the products after the first three months, and did not make clear the mid-contract price increase, we concluded that the ads were misleading.”

As usual the ASA banned the promotion in its current form and told O2 to ensure that future promotions didn’t read like one of those ugly maths problems from school made the on-going monthly and total costs, as well as any mid-contract price increases, clear. The operator was also told to ensure that they linked the headline price claim to the qualifying text about the RPI increase.