Sky Broadband is not the UK's cheapest, growls ad watchdog
- Reference: 1589379305
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/13/sky_broadband_asa_ruling_misleading_ad/
- Source link:
TV ads for Sky Broadband boasted back in January that the British telco offered "the UK's lowest price superfast broadband with Wi-Fi Guarantee or money back". Somebody who was not convinced by this complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The ASA, a private company based in London's trendy Shoreditch, did some digging. Sky claimed it was basing the on-screen comparison with BT, on the basis that "it was only BT and Sky who sold Superfast broadband with a Wi-Fi guarantee".
BT's Wi-Fi Disc ads banned because there's no evidence the things work [1]READ MORE
Adland's self-regulator was not impressed with this, ruling that what Sky had actually broadcast was "a series of short, sharp messages that appeared one after another in a sequence" which were so fast they would not have allowed Joe and Josephine Average to understand what they actually said.
"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 'Wi-Fi 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," said the watchdog.
Having been found to have broadcast a misleading advert based on shonky price comparisons against its rivals, Sky was ordered not to re-run the ads again – and to "not misleadingly imply that they offered the UK's lowest-priced superfast broadband if that was not the case". ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/18/bt_wifi_disc_ad_claims_misleading_evidence/
[2] https://go.theregister.co.uk/tl/1936/-8552/how-to-accelerate-brilliant-digital-experiences-with-low-code?td=wptl1936
Whatever Sky wants it to mean.
Yep. That's exactly the first thing that jumped out at me. I'm pretty sure it means that when you turn on their router you'll get 2 litres of wifi - guaranteed. Just like all of the other providers.
I'm with VM and I get 3 litres of wifi - guaranteed!! And a nice plastic measuring jug to keep it in.
Disappointingly
The whole message of the advert is a sad reflection of consumer habits these days.
Service? Quality? Performance? None of this matters. It's all a race to the bottom on price.
It's the same with everything. Broadband. Cars. Clothes. Furniture. Pretty much anything. Joe Public forgets about anything other than number on the ticket, and other than a few select vendors, everyone (including those who used to make good quality stuff) churns out horrible tat with only skin-deep quality because that's all that matters to the majority.
Re: Disappointingly
In other words...
You get what you paid for.
Sometimes buying the cheapest costs you more in the long run.
Re: You get what you paid for.
This is one of those phrases like "I could care less" that seems to have been trimmed a bit from its original formulation: "You never get _more_ than you paid for".
It is entirely possible (likely) that you will get less, no matter how much you paid.
(Cue the wag with the "I'm glad I don't get all the government I pay for")
Re: Disappointingly
“ because that's all that matters to the majority”
It’s actually all that matters to the bean counters. If they can make the product cheaper by stripping quality out that most consumers won’t care about they make more profit.
Do you want an iPhone or latest xiaomi with mega x number of buzzwords?
A 10 year old slr can still take better pictures Than latest shiny phone but isn’t anywhere near as luggable.
Re: Disappointingly
@ tip pc
Excuse me sir, but my God knows how many years old Canon T90 can take better pictures than most modern cameras.
I shall now duck and run
Cheers… Ish
Re: Disappointingly
" A 10 year old slr can still take better pictures Than latest shiny phone but isn’t anywhere near as luggable. "
In defence of the phone, Facebook or whatever the current social media craze is, video/audio streaming, random internet stuff, SMB sharing of files, Google Docs for writing stuff on the go (better with a Bluetooth keyboard!), and can easily print to all sorts of WiFi printers. Make and receive phone calls. Or video calls. Or just text messages. And, yup, it has a camera built in too.
Maybe not as good as your SLR (it doesn't matter how good the imagers are if the lenses aren't and your aperture is fixed) but we can compare like with like when your camera can do all the other stuff. Let's start with watching Ghost In The Shell on Netflix.....
Re: Disappointingly
The problem is that it is almost impossible to compare products by anything except price. Companies lie about every other aspect of their product apart from the most basic 'facts'. And company 'reputation' doesn't count for much as most products are built in the same third-world hell-holes anyway. Currently, on-line reviews offer a bit of independent advice, but the companies are gaming that system now too.
Most people have realized you might as well buy cheap shit because it's so hard to be confident that what you're buying isn't shit. And people would rather buy chap shit than expensive shit.
Is it man made?
'And people would rather buy chap shit than expensive shit'
It is just more snake oil by the sound of it. I am not a Sky customer, but IIRC it's something like if you pay an extra £5 on top of your broadband for a 'boost pack' which guarantees 3mbps wifi in every room, or if you don't get it then you get your extra £5 fee back which of course means you're still paying full price for no or slow wifi. Worst. Guarantee. Ever. There are a couple of other 'advantages' (they waive the extra fee for getting weekend/evening call out visits, but I suspect not the much bigger call out appointment fee, plus 2GB of mobile data is added to your Sky mobile account for unplanned outages but only if you're also a Sky mobile customer and with so many small print exemptions that make it pretty pointless).
As for their misleading adverts, they'll all keep doing it unless we see some significant punishments.
Re: "As for their misleading adverts..."
The current "punishment" regime is useless - forbidding advertisers from running an advert that they aren't using/showing any more is a waste of time.
What might work is forbidding them from advertising at all for a while - perhaps on similar lines to the coronavirus fines, where the ban duration starts modest, but rapidly ratchets up for repeat offences (within defined limits and with a slow decay [like speeding points]).
Or maybe we should just go the whole hog and ban advertising entirely! (launch the "B" ark)
Re: "As for their misleading adverts..."
" The current "punishment" regime is useless "
Over here in France, certain gossip magazines take a "publish and be damned" attitude to some stories. When they get their asses handed to them by the courts, quite often a magazine must be removed from sale (if it is still available) and then an apology must be printed on the front cover.
So why can't we apply that sort of thing to advertising? Not only does {COMPANY} have to remove it's untruthful advert, but they also have to rectify those untruths by paying for an equivalent amount of advertising time (as the lie one, same times of day as well) running an advert for at least seven calendar days that states " {COMPANY} is full of shit and we lied to you. Our {OFFER} has more holes in it than a Swiss cheese. If you sign up for our service you're a lemming. " Or words to that effect.
"Sky Broadband has been publicly punished"
No it hasn't. It has just been forbidden from running an ad that has probably already reached end of display. Marketing is a fickle world and the lifespan of an ad is approaching goldfish attention span.
A public punishment would have been the CEO of Sky appearing before a judge and getting a few weeks sentence (come on, it's just an ad) hard time. No, not comfy house arrest, that's for pussies. No, not community service, it's supposed to be punishment. If we did have the balls to do that, CEOs in general would become a lot more wary of the ads their marketing department put out, so it would be a win/win.
SO what does 'wifi guarantee' actually mean?