Tom Hardy Sky Mobile TV Advert Banned for Misleading “free of charge” Claim

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a TV advert for the Sky Mobile service, which featured film actor Tom Hardy, because it was deemed to have misleadingly claimed that customers could swap their old phone for the latest one every 12 months “free of charge“.

Customers of Sky Mobile (Sky Broadband) will be aware that the service includes a feature called ‘Swap’, which means that after 12 or 24 months, Sky will let you know when it’s time to swap and you can then choose a brand new phone from their entire range of handsets. This service is often said to be offered “free of charge” and the TV advert made that same claim.

The ad also included three separate paragraphs of on-screen text, shown sequentially, which noted that the promotion was “free of early upgrade, admin and delivery charges. 24 month interest free loan with data plan needed for each new phone“, followed by “Trade in value of old Sky phone credited to existing loan. Full repayment required” and “Subject to status and availability. 18+. Ts and Cs apply. See [Sky website address]“. Check out the advert below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBx0JxR5k5w

However, two people complained that the “free of charge” claim was misleading because they had to take out a 24-month, interest-free loan with a data plan in order to receive their new phone. One also believed that early clearance of the balance from the first loan meant they would lose the benefits of the calls, texts and data they would have received in the year had they remained in their original contract.

ASA Ruling (REF: A17-385708)

Given that the ad referred to a one-year-old phone to once being “the hot, new model” but was now looking “tired“, and invited customers to “swap your old phone for the latest one,” customers might want to take this opportunity to upgrade their phone. While we acknowledged there would be a certain amount of expectation by the customer that a new handset might cost them more per month, particularly if it contained more features, we nevertheless considered that, in addition to beginning a new, two-year commitment, some customers could also end up paying more per month. We considered that too was material information which should have been stated clearly in the ad.

We acknowledged that on-screen text stated “24 month interest free loan with data plan needed for each new phone” and “Trade in value of old Sky phone credited to existing loan. Full repayment required“. However, we considered the need to take out a new, 24-month loan and the possibility of a higher monthly charge with an upgraded phone were pieces of information that customers needed to be aware of before enquiring about the offer, thus needed to be stated clearly and prominently in the ad. Because we considered that neither the prominence of and the phrasing of the on-screen text nor the spoken or visual information in the ad were made sufficiently clear, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.

As usual the ASA have arrived somewhat late to the party because the TV advert in question hasn’t been run for a long time and was originally shown during April 2017. Nevertheless the ASA told Sky to ensure that any material information relating to an offer was stated sufficiently clearly in their future ads.