ASA rules against two Virgin Media ad claims

The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the country's advertising watchdog, has ruled against two complaints about content of Virgin Media's website and TV ads claiming superior internet speeds over its rivals.

Rival broadband providers BT and Sky had complained to the ASA about Virgin Media's claims, which the upheld.

According to the firms, that regularly spar over advertising claims, the information on the Virgin website was so misleading that it needed to be removed.

Their complaint focused on an ad that featured super fast sprinter Usain Bolt and Richard Branson, claiming that Virgin Media's broadband speeds were five times as fast as the competition, which the complainants said was more misleading than revealing.

According to the ASA, BT challenged the TV ads and Sky challenged the press ads and the website claims.

"BT and Sky challenged whether the claims that consumers would be able to 'download 5x faster than Sky and BT's regular broadband' were misleading and could be substantiated, because they considered it was an absolute claim which implied that all Virgin Media customers would always be able to 'download 5x faster' than Sky's and BT's broadband customers, which they understood was not the case, because the claim was based on average speeds," the ASA said.

In defence, Virgin Media said that people would know that the five times claim would not apply to connections all the time, adding that it had provided a webpage that showed what results the claim was based on, and offered figures comparing its speed with its rivals.

According to the ASA, users might not assume that the "5x faster" speeds were full time, but also found enough things it called "misleading" to ban the ads in their present form.

The claims had raised the hackles of both Sky and BT, with BT claiming Virgin Media failed to offer enough and complete information that could support such a claim.

BT and Sky filed complaints concerning other ads that also made similar comparisons with their own services, and according to both companies, they were unanimous and united in mentioning that the ads made an ''absolute claim which implied that all Virgin Media customers would be able 'download 5x faster' '', pointing to it potentially misleading the befuddled consumer.

According to commentators, while it was hoped it would  end well for Virgin Media, perhaps they would be better off wording their ads more carefully.