ASA UK Bans Sky Business Broadband Advert After BT Complaint

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a website advert for a Sky Business broadband package – displayed in January 2023 – after BT complained that it had made a “misleading” price comparison, which involved a claim that customers could “SAVE OVER £750” by switching to Sky’s package.

The claim itself involved a comparison between Sky’s Essential offer price vs the BT Business’ Essential standard price. But BT highlighted that their Business Essential package was actually available at a lower promotional price than their standard price at the time the ad appeared, which they said Sky had not considered.

Sky responded by acknowledging that their ad had compared their price with the standard price for BT’s Business Essential Package, which was the price customers would usually pay for the product once any promotional offer had ended. But the provider, perhaps cheekily, pointed out the ad watchdogs own CAP Guidance on retailers’ price comparisons “did not stipulate that price comparisons could only be against a competitor’s current pricing“.

The ASA didn’t agree and upheld BT’s complaint.

ASA Ruling Ref: A23-1186249 Sky UK Ltd

The CAP Guidance stated “Marketers should normally compare their promotional prices with their competitors’ promotional prices. If they do not, it should be clear that they are comparing their promotional prices with their competitors’ normal prices”. Although we acknowledged that the ad stated that the comparison was between an offer price and a standard price, we understood that at the time the ad appeared and throughout the offer period, the BT Business Essential package was also on promotion and was therefore not available to purchase at that standard price.

We acknowledged that BT customers who were currently paying the standard price and who chose to switch to the Sky package at the offer price would achieve the saving. We considered, however, that the ad did not reference making a switch and had not been directed solely at existing BT business customers who were paying BT’s standard price for their broadband. Therefore, some business consumers seeing the ad would not have been existing BT customers.

We considered that, in the absence of further, more prominent, clarifying information, business consumers would be likely to understand that BT’s package was only available at its standard price at that time and not on promotion. They would therefore have expected to make a saving of £750 by choosing Sky’s package over BT’s. We understood that whilst existing BT business customers paying their standard price would have been able to achieve that saving by choosing Sky’s package over BT’s, other business consumers would not.

Because business consumers would understand from the ad that they could save £750 by purchasing Sky’s broadband package rather than BT’s broadband package at the time the ad appeared when that was not the case for all, we concluded the ad was likely to mislead.

BT also complained that a “significant proportion of customers” would have to pay Sky’s £99 installation fee (Openreach) and that had not been factored into the advertised savings (the advert stated: “If required, £99 Openreach install may apply“). But that part of the provider’s complaint was not upheld after Sky pointed out, and the ASA agreed, that the fee was only applicable to those who had chosen FTTP for the first time, which would be a “minority of users” (this won’t be the case for much longer as their FTTP now covers 11 million premises).

As for the upheld complaint, the ASA told Sky that the ad must not appear again in the same form and warned the ISP to ensure that their future price comparisons were clear, and that their ads reflected the prices available to all business consumers.