ASA UK Bans Sky Store Advert for Instant Movie Rental Downloads Claim

The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a press advert for Sky’s (Sky Store) movie rental service after rival ISP BT complained that it would have required a significantly faster internet connection than Sky Broadband could deliver in order to meet their “available instantly” promise.

Sky Store is an online movie rental service that allows the operators customers to use their remote control for downloading movies via their Sky Broadband connection to a Sky+ TV box. BT challenged that Sky’s advert, which claimed customers could “rent movies instantly through your Sky+ box“, misleadingly exaggerated the speed with which consumers could use the service.

Sky countered that its service allowed customers to begin watching a movie before it had been fully downloaded, sometimes “within seconds” of the download having started. But the advertising watchdog chose to agree with BT instead.

ASA Assessment (REF: A12-197620)

The ASA considered that consumers would understand that video content accessed via the internet would be affected by the speed of their home internet and that they would need a “fast enough broadband connection” in order for the service to allow them to rent movies “instantly”, which we considered they would interpret to mean straightaway, or with no noticeable delay.

We noted that Sky estimated a significant majority of ADSL broadband users would be able to begin watching an average length movie within less than a minute after beginning the download, and we understood that customers with faster fibre optic and cable broadband connections were much more likely to be able to begin viewing within that time frame.

However, we considered that a delay of up to a minute for most customers (and longer for those with slower broadband connections) would not be in line with their reasonable expectations for an online movie service which was described as “instant”. We therefore considered that the ad had exaggerated the capabilities of the service and we concluded that it was likely to mislead.

On this occasion we can see both sides of the argument and can’t help but wonder if the ASA hasn’t been a bit overzealous, although it’s admittedly a difficult one to call. In any case the ASA ruled that Sky’s ad must not appear again in its current form or “exaggerate the speed with which consumers would be able to access movies using Sky Store“.