bbb_uk wrote on Jul 19
th, 2006 at 5:58pm:
I noticed on a thread on MSE
here that the ASA ruling on TalkTalk's advert has been announced, see
here.
I haven't included the full response as it's a very long adjudication to which I don't ever remember reading such a long adjudication from ASA.
Yee-hah TalkTalk lost on almost everything and can no longer claim it is "free broadband" or "for life" (you will note the tv adverts stopped some time ago). Good old ASA - a damn site more useful than wasters Ofcom. I quote from the relevant paragraphs of the adjudication:-
"Issue
145 people, including competitors British Telecom, Tiscali and ntl:Telewest, complained about the advertising. They said it was:
Point 1. misleading to suggest that the broadband was free when it involved an 18-month contractual commitment to the Talk3 International (T3I) calls package; a connection charge of £29.99; ongoing costs of £9.99 per month plus line rental (£20.99 in total) and a disconnection fee of £70;Complaints upheld
The ASA noted that the T3I calls package cost only £1 per month more than the next-highest-priced "T3" calls package and included some international calls. We also accepted that customers had a choice as to whether to take broadband and that broadband was available separately, albeit for £35 a month. We also noted that TalkTalk had relied in good faith on the CAP (Non-broadcast) Help Note on "Free" Claims for Internet Packages in order to claim the broadband element was "free". However, we understood that CAP intended this help note to relate only to existing packages. We did not therefore consider it applied because T3I was a brand new package. Also, CAP (Broadcast) Help Note on "Free" claims stated "... if an extra element is added ... to form a more attractive product, the element could be described as "free" for a reasonable period as long as the original package (without the extra element) had been available beforehand at the same price, again for a reasonable period."
We considered that, because T3I was a brand new package, and the intention was that the broadband element would always be an optional extra to that package, the broadband was, to all intents and purposes, a constituent part of the new T3I package; it was only available as an option to people who paid a connection charge to sign up and who continued to pay a monthly charge. We considered this made broadband an intrinsic part of the new T3I calls package which made it different to "free insurance" or "buy one get one free offers". Although we acknowledged that the price difference of T3I had not been inflated beyond that of equivalent competitor's call packages we still considered that the broadband element should not have been described as "free".
We told TalkTalk to seek CAP Copy Advice before using "free" in future non-broadcast advertising and that the claim be removed.
On this point, the TV ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 5.1 (Misleading advertising), 5.2.1 (Evidence) and 5.2.4 (Use of free).
On this point the CD promotion and press ad breached CAP Code Clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).
Point 2. It was misleading to claim broadband was "free forever"
2. Complaints upheldWe noted that the offer was not introductory. However, as we did not consider the broadband could be described as free (as outlined in point 1 above) we considered the claim "free forever" to be misleading. Furthermore, even if the broadband could be described as "free" we did not consider it was possible for TalkTalk to substantiate the claim "free forever". Inevitably, for those people who had signed up to the offer when it was advertised as "free", the broadband would become "inclusive" after a reasonable period of time because they would continue to pay £20.99 a month. The benefit of "free" broadband would therefore stop once it became inclusive because customer's future payments would be for an "inclusive" rather than "free" aspect of what they were paying for.
On this point, the TV ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rule 5.1 (Misleading advertising).
On this point the CD promotion and press ad breached CAP Code Clause 7.1 (Truthfulness).