Ad description

A promoted tweet on the Sky Sports Twitter account featured an image of Formula 1 cars. Text stated "Watch every minute of the race live with the Sky Sports Mobile TV app. Watch it live on your mobile for just £4.99pm". Underneath the text and image, the ad featured a link to install the app.

Issue

Two complainants, who understood that the Sky Sports F1 channel, which showed live Formula One, was only available from £9.99 per month, challenged whether the price claim was misleading.

Response

British Sky Broadcasting Ltd said the £4.99 price statement was included in error. They said they had since improved their internal processes to ensure that a similar error did not occur in the future, and they provided assurance that future ads would not include incorrect price statements.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA understood that British Sky Broadcasting said they had included the price statement in error and, while we welcomed their assurance that future ads would not include incorrect price statements, we noted that a previous investigation with British Sky Broadcasting had been closed informally following their assurance that the same claim relating to the price of the Sky Sports F1 channel would be removed from future marketing communications. Because the price statement understated the minimum cost of the product that the ad was promoting, we concluded it was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules  3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.  (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 and  3.22 3.22 Price claims such as "up to" and "from" must not exaggerate the availability or amount of benefits likely to be obtained by the consumer.  (Prices).

Action

The ad must not appear in its current form. We told British Sky Broadcasting Ltd to ensure future marketing communications did not include misleading price statements.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.1     3.17     3.22    


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