Ever faster Internet speeds

07 June 2005

The ASA upheld complaints about this broadband ad

Internet technology advances at a rate of knots and sometimes marketers bamboozle consumers about just what it is that they’re offering.  Traditionally, many consumers were interested only in an Internet package’s download speed but increasingly consumers are interested in upload speed as well. 

The broadcast arm of the ASA, ASAB, recently ruled that ads that exaggerate the speed or capabilities of Internet packages are misleading.  One advertiser implied users could upload digital photos more quickly than before. Click here to read the adjudication [PDF].  Another implied users could send e-mails more than 5 times faster than standard 56k dial-up.  In both cases, the download speed had improved, not the upload speed, yet the advertisements had featured activities that could not be performed more quickly without improved upload speed.

CAP’s advice for non-broadcast marketers is: either do not use unqualified speed claims (unless the package is faster for both downloads and uploads) or be specific about the advantage, e.g. “Faster download” or  “Upload speeds of up to XMB”.  You can read more on the Internet section of  AdviceOnline.

And, before you zip off to change your claims, you should bear in mind one more thing: because of technical limits or the number of people on the network, unqualified claims such as “1Mb Broadband” can sometimes be misleading.  If the quoted speed is unlikely to be achieved in all circumstances, you should remember the ASA has asked marketers include “up to” in their claims.

Don’t be too hasty to draft claims about speed without making sure you’ve communicated the facts correctly.  Remember, sometimes more haste is less speed.

Adjudications:

NTL - click here

BT - click here

AOL - click here