ITWire

The Advertising Standards Authority is the industry watchdog for the advertising business in the UK, overseeing a self-policing system that works well. Most of the time. In the case of an advert trying to sell mobile phone contracts, however, things would appear to have gone rather pear shaped.

All Vodafone wanted to do was sell a few mobile phone packages. How does a bundle of unlimited calls and text messages, wrapped up with some Internet access thrown in, sound?

Would it sound any better, or worse for that matter, if the actress doing the voice-over spoke a little slower? No chance of that matey. In fact, she managed to spit out a 30 word legal 'terms and conditions apply' disclaimer in a shade under 8 seconds.

You can hear the actual clip here and make your own mind up as to whether it was too fast to comprehend or not.

Not that it makes any difference because the ASA has made a ruling and found against Vodafone. End result, the advert cannot be broadcast again in the same form.

So, how many Mr Angry from the suburbs types did it take to give the mobile phone giant a slap across the marketing choppers? 100 perhaps? 50 maybe? How about 1? Ding! That's right, just the one whinger was all it took.

Apparently the numbers of complainers do not matter, the breaching of the Radio Advertising Code does. Specifically the section which deals with 'misleadingness.' This states quite clearly, and slowly, that a radio advert is misleading if:

"...in any way, including its presentation, it deceives or is likely to deceive the persons to whom it is addressed ... and if, by reason of its deceptive nature, it is likely to affect their economic behaviour..."

So how did Vodafone respond to the Advertising Standards Agency allegations? Find out on page 2...

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