Virgin Media has been rapped by the UK’s advertising watchdog for a TV promo that claimed users of its broadband service are not affected by buffering.
The ad, starring Doctor Who actor David Tennant, said subscribers to the cable company’s super-fast broadband products “could say bye-bye to buffering” when streaming online video.
A total of 18 people complained about the advert, arguing it was misleading as customers would still be affected by some degree of buffering.
Advertising services organisation Clearcast said the inclusion of the word “could” meant the strapline made no specific promise that buffering would be completely eradicated by signing up for fibre optic broadband with Virgin Media.
However, this argument was rejected by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which concluded that the promo was misleading due to the ambiguous way in which the claim was presented.
“Because it was unclear to which element of the statement the conditional ‘could’ applied, it could … be understood by viewers to mean that consumers would eliminate buffering if they signed up to the Virgin Media broadband service,” the regulator stated.
Ruling that the ad also breached rules on substantiation and exaggeration, the ASA declared it must not appear again in its current form.