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The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), prompted by a complaint from rival mobile operator EE (BT), has banned two website adverts for Vodafone after the watchdog found that it had made “misleading” savings claims and the packages did not return to the prices against which the savings were being claimed once the promotions ended.
At issue were two promotions for Vodafone’s mobile SIM plans: a) a listing for the Unlimited Plus SIM service stated “Save £240. Monthly £23. Offer ends 19 December”, and b) a similar listing for the Unlimited Max SIM plan stated “Black Friday: Save £312. Monthly £23. Offer ends 2 December”.
Both ads also had a previous version, with the prior version of ad (a) stating “Unlimited Plus. Black Friday. Save £312. Monthly £20. Offer ends 02 December” (we’ll call this ad ‘c’ below) and the prior version of (b) stating: “Unlimited Max. 6 months half price. Monthly £18. £36pm after 6 months. Offer ends 28 November” (we’ll call this ‘d’ below).
However, the ASA ultimately agreed that the savings claims made for (a) and (b) had been misleading, not least because the claims for both products “had not been made against the immediately preceding prices at which the products were sold at when the ads appeared“. For example, the savings claim in (a) was based on a prior price of £33 per month, but the immediately preceding price had been their Black Friday (c) deal of £20.
In addition, the ASA found that the products in both ads “did not return to the prices against which the savings were being claimed once the promotions ended“, which they concluded meant the “ads were misleading” (here). As usual, the ASA banned the adverts in their current form and told Vodafone to “ensure that future savings claims did not mislead and to ensure products returned to the price against which the saving was being claimed, once a promotion ended“.
ISPreview has seen quite a few broadband ISPs and mobile operators using similar tactics when making savings claims over the years. This can be particularly tedious when the discounts seem to change, often on an almost weekly basis (i.e. it becomes very hard for consumers to know what the real baseline price of a particular package is). We’d like to think that the ASA’s ruling will be taken as a warning shot across the bow of such promotions.