ASA disconnects Vodafone signal claim ads following Three complaint
Two ads from Vodafone have been banned after the ad watchdog warned the mobile carrier not “to imply they performed as well as other mobile network operators on call connection and dropped calls”, following a complaint by rival Three.
An independent study backed Vodafone's claims of an unbeatable signal in ads by Grey Advertising. These featured on the Vodafone website and in the national press. The ad watchdog found the findings to be flawed however, thus scuppering the ads.
Hutchison 3G's Three made the only complaint about the following press ad: “We've found your dog’ ‘We've found your wallet ‘We've found you a donor’... Many people on the UK's transplant waiting list never go anywhere without their mobile; in case they get that call that could change their life. We're unbeatable at connecting your calls. Because to us, whether life changing or not, every call matters.”
Similarly the Vodafone rival took exception to the “unbeatable at keeping your calls connected” promise on the carrier's website.
The Advertising Stanards Authority (ASA), in consultation with Ofcom, deemed that while the study upon which Vodafone attempted to substantiate the findings was methodologically solid, the sample size of 26 cities was not representative of Vodafone’s true UK coverage.
An ASA statement read: “We noted there were no locations in Wales or Northern Ireland and that the two Scottish locations were approximately ten miles away from each other. We therefore considered that most of Scotland had been excluded from the sample.
“We noted that the majority of locations were in the West Midlands, North West of England, West Yorkshire and London, which left the South East, South West and North East of England excluded.”
On why the ads were canned, the ASA concluded: “We considered Vodafone’s substantiation was insufficient to support their top parity claims. We therefore concluded the ads had not been substantiated and were misleading.”
The ads are not to appear again in their current form until Vodafone can prove its claims with a comprehensive UK-wide study.