ASA Bans Sky UK Advert for “Lowest Priced” Broadband Claim

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a TV advert for ISP Sky Broadband after it was found to have misleadingly claimed to offer “the UK’s lowest priced superfast broadband” service, which was not substantiated by the limited comparison.

The promotion itself stemmed from the provider’s January 2020 sale, which included a voiceover that said: “Save big on the UK’s lowest priced superfast broadband, with WiFi Guarantee or money back,” but they only included a single comparison with BT’s service and their related Complete WiFi product.

Sky argued that their “lowest price” claim was intended to reflect the combination of both the superfast broadband package and its related WiFi Guarantee. Indeed they noted that “at no point in the ad was Superfast broadband referenced without also referring to the WiFi guarantee.”

However, the ASA disagreed, not least by highlighting how the presentation of Sky’s ad would have resulted in viewers reading “lowest price” as a separate claim, which was thus poorly substantiated.

ASA Ruling (REF:A20-1050417 Sky UK Ltd)

We considered that the use of staggered messaging at such a pace made it difficult to follow, and the voice-over’s intonation after having stated, “The UK’s lowest price Superfast broadband” suggested a pause between the claim and the information that followed. We therefore considered that consumers would understand that “WiFi Guarantee or money back” was a feature of the product, but that Sky were separately claiming to offer the UK’s lowest-priced superfast broadband.

We understood that the comparison related only to the superfast broadband products available on the market which offered a guarantee of a certain speed of WiFi in every room of a home or money-back on the subscription if that was not achieved. However, for the reasons stated above, we did not consider that to have been made clear in the ad, and while we recognised that the superimposed text remained on display throughout the ad and stated “Compared to BT standard price for Superfast Broadband + Complete WiFi”, we did not consider that to override the impression created that Sky were offering the UK’s lowest price broadband overall, particularly given that consumers’ attention was drawn to the main on-screen text through the manner by which it flew on and off screen.

As usual the ASA banned the promotion and told Sky to ensure that they “did not misleadingly imply that they offered the UK’s lowest-priced superfast broadband if that was not the case.” Admittedly this won’t make much of a difference now as the January SALE promotion has long since ended.

At least Sky can take some comfort from the fact that they aren’t the only ISP to see a promotion related to their WiFi guarantee being banned. BT recently saw a similar promotion for their own service being pulled, albeit for the different reason of misleadingly claiming that “only we guarantee wi-fi in every room” (here).