T-Mobile ‘Truly Unlimited’ adverts banned
T-Mobile has been told by the ASA that adverts defining its service as ‘truly unlimited’ must not appear again in the same form because there are exclusions.
The three banned adverts said in small print at the bottom ‘you can’t use your phone as a modem (tethering) or use internet on your phone for peer-to-peer file sharing or making internet calls’.
Everything Everywhere said in defence of the website, press and poster ad that typically internet plans had either a fixed data allowance or were ‘unlimited’ with a corresponding fair use policy (FUP) to stop excessive and abusive use of the service. It said the T-Mobile plans did not have a data allowance or a FUP, and the exclusions were made clear in the advert, so it was not misleading.
However, the ASA ruled that “Truly Unlimited Internet” was a very strong claim, and went beyond a typical “unlimited” internet claim, which it considered consumers understood would be likely to be subject to some limitations such as a FUP.
The ASA said: “Although we noted that the plan was not subject to a FUP and that the three exceptions/restrictions were set out in the ads' small print, we considered that, to all intents and purposes, where an ad claimed that a plan was “Truly Unlimited”, exclusions would be contrary to a consumer’s expectations. We therefore considered that the information in the small print contradicted the headline claim “Truly Unlimited”.
Because we considered that exclusions to an internet plan advertised as “Truly Unlimited” would be contrary to consumers’ expectations and because we understood that restrictions had been imposed on the plan, we concluded that the claim was misleading.
The claim breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation), 3.9 (Qualification) and 3.11 (Exaggeration).”
A T-Mobile spokesperson said: "The Truly Unlimited Internet offer was a short term summer promotion that ran for three months from 1 July until the 30 September 2011. We are naturally disappointed that the ruling has been upheld, as the offer has been very well received by our customers. However, we will take the ASA ruling on board and apply this to how we advertise offers to our customers in the future."