Virgin Media Direct Mailing Advert Banned for Misleading Half Price Offer

Cable operator Virgin Media has had one of its Direct Mailing (booklet) adverts banned by the Advertising Standards Authority after it failed to make immediately clear that the half price offer it was peddling didn’t apply to the cost of line rental.

The promotion promised “massive savings on TV, broadband, calls and mobile“, although inside the booklet the text stated that customers would “pay half price until January next year … Just £4 a month for 6 months then £8 a month with a Virgin Phone line for £14.99 a month“. But only on the reverse did it make completely clear that the half price discount was “not applicable to line rental“.

ASA Ruling (REF: A13-246467)

Although we acknowledged that if a consumer read the offers within the booklet they would understand that the half-price offer did not include line rental charges where applicable, we considered that the fact line rental charges were excluded from the saving was significant information which should have been included on the front cover of the booklet.

Because we considered that most consumers reading the claims on the front cover of the booklet would understand that the half-price saving applied to all the packages within, and include line rental charges where applicable, we concluded that the ad was misleading and in breach of the Code.

As usual the advert was banned and the ASA told Virgin Media to make clear if line rental charges were excluded from their offers. It’s not the first time Virgin has been warned about masking the cost of line rental and the same complaint has also been levelled against other ISPs.