ASA Ban Vodafone UK Ad Over Misleading “The Nation’s Network” Claim

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an advert on UK mobile and broadband operator Vodafone’s website. This occured after EE complained that its claim of being “The Nation’s Network” was an “implied comparative superiority claim“, which was ultimately deemed to be “misleading“.

The ad in question appeared in December 2024 on the www.vodafone.co.uk/network page, which was headed “Connecting you this Christmas on The Nation’s Network”. Some small text stated, “The Nation’s Network: Vodafone UK, supporting the nation since 1984” and linked to “Full verification”. Bold text alongside stated, “The Nation’s Network”.

Text further down the same web page in a sub-section stated, “Why we’re The Nation’s Network Since 1984, we’ve gone from strength to strength to support the nation. Today, we’re proud to call ourselves The Nation’s Network” and listed “Firsts in the telecommunication industry”, “Supporting our emergency services” and “Reliable, award-winning network”.

In addition, text in another sub-section of the web page stated, “Staying connected on The Nation’s Network We’re helping you stay connected, whether you’re at home or travelling” and listed “99% UK home coverage”, “international roaming” and “our growing 5G network”.

Vodafone argued that the use of “The Nation’s Network” was in reference to their heritage as the UK’s “first and most long-standing mobile telephone network“. But the ASA ruled that “there were several possible consumer interpretations” of their statement and that a “significant minority of consumers were likely to view the claim” as being more a reference to comparisons of greater reliability, superior coverage and better connectivity than rivals. But in that case they’d need to be able to substantiate such a position, which they could not.

ASA Ruling (REF: A24-1271366 Vodafone Ltd)

“The CAP Code required that comparisons with identifiable competitors must objectively compare one or more material, relevant, verifiable and representative features of those products. As such, we expected the ad to objectively compare one or more verifiable features. Because we considered that the claim, as it was presented in ad (b), was likely to be understood by consumers in a range of ways (including as a comparison against all other UK networks, for example that Vodafone was the most popular network in the UK, had the most customers or had better coverage or reliability than its competitors), we considered the ad failed to objectively compare one or more material, relevant, verifiable and representative features and concluded that the claim “The Nation’s Network”, as it appeared in ad (b), breached the Code.

We also considered market research submitted by Vodafone. The ASA Council noted that rule 1.7 of the CAP Code stated that “Any unreasonable delay in responding to the ASA’s enquiries will normally be considered a breach of the Code”. The ASA Council considered that Vodafone’s submission of consumer research in this case was at a very late stage of the investigation, and did not provide evidence for Vodafone’s argument that the average consumer would not associate the ‘’The Nation’s Network’’ with an implied comparative superiority claim.

The ASA considered that the themes measured in outcome 1 suggested that the participants felt that the ad was showing things that could reasonably be viewed, as objectively measurable factors with a potential comparative element. For example, 10% of respondents were grouped in the theme “info about Vodafone services and products”, 7% in “network reliability”, 6% in “affordable pricing”. We noted that this question did not ask specifically about the claim “The Nation’s Network”.

We considered that the results in outcome 2 suggested the claim was potentially interpreted by a significant minority of participants (39%) as being about specific objectively measurable features or characteristics of Vodafone’s service, such as the 8% grouped in “Customer satisfaction”, 25% in “Vodafone’s coverage”, 3% in “Telco/service quality”, and the 3% in Broadband services.

The questions did not specifically ask about comparability, and the research outcomes did not provide evidence that participants did not associate “The Nation’s Network” as a superiority claim, as Vodafone suggested. We considered that the research was not sufficient to provide a basis for suggesting that the average consumer would not associate the ‘’The Nation’s Network’’ with an implied comparative superiority claim, as argued by Vodafone. Therefore, our assessment remained that at least a significant minority of consumers were likely to interpret the claim “the Nation’s Network” as being an objective comparative claim against the UK’s other network providers.”

As usual, the ASA banned the advert in its current form and told Vodafone to “ensure they objectively compared one or more material, relevant, verifiable and representative features if making an implied comparative claim“.

EE also lodged a similar claim against a TV ad that featured some of the same wording. But the ASA did not uphold the complaint against that one because Vodafone was deemed to have provided sufficient contextual information to support the statement.