ASA UK Ban Bruce Willis TV Advert for Sky Broadband over Price Confusion

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned one of Sky Broadband’s hugely expensive TV adverts, which showcased action movie star Bruce Willis, after a viewer complained that it failed to make the pricing commitment clear to potential subscribers. Yippee ki-yay..

The ASA, as a result of a ruling against Virgin Media last year (here), requires that all ISPs must include the cost of compulsory phone line rental in their broadband bundles. Meanwhile Sky’s latest advert did mention the cost of their Sky TV (£21.50), Sky Line Rental (£14.50) and SkyBroadband Unlimited (£7.50) package in the text but it was presented as though they were standalone solutions.

Sky countered that the only commitment a consumer must make in order to obtain their broadband service was to take Sky Line Rental and added that it was not a requirement for consumers to take Sky TV. But Sky also said that the broadband service would only cost £7.50 per month when taken by Sky TV customers and non-Sky TV users would actually have to pay £10.

ASA Assessment (REF: A13-227982)

The cost of line rental was presented in on-screen text visible at the same time that the £7.50 price claim was made. However, we considered that small print at the bottom of the screen would by its nature be significantly less prominent than a claim made in a voice-over, and that that was therefore not an appropriate method of communicating material information relating to the £7.50 price claim.

We also considered that the cost associated with the TV element of the package being promoted was presented even less clearly to viewers because, although the ad contained text stating “Sky TV from £21.50 a month”, that text had been absent from the screen for almost 15 seconds by the time that the voice-over referred to Unlimited broadband at “£7.50 a month”.

In order to ensure they were sufficiently prominent, we considered that the minimum monthly price of both Sky TV and line rental should have been clearly communicated together with the £7.50 price claim. Because it was not, we concluded that the ad did not make sufficiently clear the extent of the commitment consumers had to make in order to obtain the broadband service at the advertised price of £7.50 per month, and was misleading.

The ASA ruled that the advert was “misleading” and told Sky that it must not appear again in its current form. As you might expect this ruling comes somewhat after the fact and Sky’s TV adverts have since been tweaked to improve their clarity.