Rating: ASA says, “Guilty M’lLord.”
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has just found Vodafone guilty of misleading adverts for its mobile broadband service on three counts. It just got a smacked wrist, however.The adjudication followed complaints raised by two other UK operators – 3 UK and T-Mobile – over the use of the words, “The fastest, most reliable mobile broadband in the galaxy” in a couple of Vodafone’s adverts.
The challenge centred around whether Vodafone’s broadband service was indeed ‘fastest’ and whether it was the ‘most reliable’. T-Mobile also got upset that “mobile broadband that’s light years ahead” misleadingly implied that Vodafone’s mobile broadband was vastly superior.
Vodafone’s defence centred on an Independent Network Benchmarking Trial carried out by LCC International. Unfortunately for Vodafone, the ASA noted that in six out of the 10 regions of the UK tested, one of the other networks had a faster average time to download a web page than Vodafone.
So that was the fastest argument out of the window, then. Next the ASA had to consider the ‘most reliable’ bit. It concluded that although Vodafone might be able to provide the most reliable service based on the nationwide average of the criteria LCC had tested, this wasn’t clear to the general public.
Thus the most reliable part was deemed misleading. This just left the complaint about Vodafone’s network being light years ahead. The ASA reckoned that since the fastest and most reliable claims were invalid, it could see no justification for the light years ahead bit. So, that’s Vodafone down on three counts.
The consequences? The SAS says, “The ads must not appear again in their current form. We told Vodafone to make clear the basis of their claims in future.”
There’s no mention of an apology or a fine being imposed, however.
