14 DAY TRIAL // Advertising is the proverbial hen that lays the golden egg for the Internet industry, but companies should be very careful as to how they approach the subject. It can bring in tremendous income, but as the latest court decision regarding it shows, it can also leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth. Depends on how serious you consider it to be.
Be Broadband has been found in breach of the Advertising Standards Authority's code of conduct after a user reported last September, on the 22nd, that he tried to take advantage of one of the promotional offers, only to find out that it had been discontinued about a month earlier, at the end of August. The ad was placed on the site of a social network, as Webuser reports, and it promoted a broadband package that offered up-to-24Mbps connection for ?14 per month with a capped usage. Dreamy, he must have thought, so he clicked it and after that he filed a complaint with the court.
The idea that Be Broadband built its defense around was that the media-buying agency it had used, when the problem occurred, was to be blamed. BB said that it had been noticed that the particular ads were no longer running. That didn't really matter for the ASA, that would not allow fingers to be pointed, judging only the fact that the advertising was misleading. "Because the product had been withdrawn at the end of August, we considered that the ad was misleading. We considered that it was Be's responsibility to ensure that product changes were communicated promptly to online media-buying agencies," the ASA ruled.
Now, that's creating a precedent in this area of advertising, so those who plan to follow in BB's steps should take heed and accurately reflect their promotional packages in the future. Bring forth the bubbling cauldron and the pointy hat! Advertising turned into a witch's brew for the broadband company.