Relish’s Wireless Broadband Ads Banned for Misleading Price and Comparison

A press and website advert for Relish’s fixed wireless 4G broadband network in central London has been banned after BT successfully complained that their promotion used a “misleading” comparison with one of their own packages and also advertised an incorrect price for the ISPs business deal.

Relish’s press ad (A) stated “Get fibre-fast broadband, fast. Delivered to your home or office in central London, next working day, from just £20 per month” and the small print stated, “please visit our website to see if our service is available in your area“. Meanwhile their website advert (B) compared Relish’s service with BT’s Infinity 2 (FTTC) package and the fixed line rental cost was listed as “£16.75/month”.

BT made four complaints against the adverts, although only two were upheld. The first complained that the claim “From just £20 a month” in ad (A) was misleading and could be substantiated, because they understood that the price for business broadband started at £25 per month. The second moaned that the comparison with BT in ad (B) was misleading, because it included an incorrect line rental price, featured the most expensive BT package and did not explain the differences between the packages.

ASA Ruling (Ref: A14-274067)

2. Upheld

We noted that the ad stated “Delivered to your home or office in central London”. While we acknowledged that footnote text stated “Unlike many home broadband providers you don’t need to take a landline with Relish”, we considered the overall impression of the ad was that Relish provided both home and business wireless broadband from “just £20 per month”. We understood, however, that while Relish offered home broadband from £20 per month, their business broadband started at £25 per month. Because we considered that readers viewing the ad would believe that Relish offered home and business broadband from £20 per month, and that was not the case, we concluded that the price claim was misleading.

4. Upheld

The BT package listed was a phone and broadband package which included BT Sport, Unlimited access to BT’s Wi-fi network, 50 GB of cloud storage, Net Protect Plus and weekend calls. We considered that those features were significant, and were likely to influence a consumer’s decision as to which provider and package to choose. While Relish had amended the ad to include additional footnote text below the table, accessible by clicking on the link “How we calculate this table”, to explain that the other providers might include extras beyond the broadband connection, we considered that that text was not prominent enough, and did not include sufficient information regarding those additional benefits to allow consumers to make an informed decision.

As usual the ads were banned and the ASA warned Relish to ensure they made the basis of their price claims clear and that any significant differences between their own and stated comparator products were also clear in their future advertising.