Posted: 12th Jan, 2005 By: MarkJ
The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld four complaints against BT's broadband Internet access promotion, which included a historically controversial free flights offer.
The four key complaints highlighted poor administration (vouchers and flight details took too long to arrive), problems with choice of flight destination / time and general confusion:
1. Some complainants objected that the promotion was poorly administered, because they did not receive vouchers or flight details promptly;
2. some complainants objected that advertisements (a) and (b) misleadingly implied consumers could choose their destination and date of travel and that the conditions of the promotion were not made clear until a contract for broadband had been signed;
3. one complainant, who believed the only USA destination available to customers who participated in the promotion in June was Chicago, objected that the promotion was misleading, because other destinations in the USA were still being advertised in June.
4. The Authority challenged whether the promoters had made a reasonable estimate of likely response to the promotion.Each complaint has been upheld, the details of which can be found
HERE. BT has stated that it aims to learn from such mistakes.