ASA bans Ryan Reynolds BT ad
October 12, 2016
The tit for tat war of word between UK’s various broadband providers goes on. A BT ad campaign fronted by Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds has been banned following a complaint from rival Virgin Media. The campaign promoted its “up to” 52Mb Infinity fibre service as the “fastest speeds vs standard entry-level fibre products of major broadband providers”, with one ad featuring a comparison with Sky that used speedometer graphics.
Virgin Media lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) stating that the ad misleadingly implied BT’s 52Mb Infinity service was the fastest maximum speed service for a lowest-priced package available in the UK.
“We noted that the major broadband providers against whom BT had compared their service, all advertised a slower maximum speed for their cheapest option,” said the ASA. “However, we understood that there were other providers on the market whose cheapest (or only) service options advertised faster maximum speeds than 52 Mbps, in some cases significantly so.”
The ASA concluded that the advertisements were misleading and had breached the UK advertising code.