Is Virgin Media Wi-Fi really faster than its rivals like its advert claims? Touted as misleading customers, their advert making this bold claim has been banned in recent weeks.
Virgin Media claimed in their advert that they had the ‘fastest Wi-Fi guarantee of any major provider.’
Understandably, this ruffled a few of their rivals’ feathers leading to Vodafone making a complaint to the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority).
The watchdog agreed that the information presented by Virgin Media was misleading, by leading customers to believe that Virgin’s Wi-Fi was faster than that available from other providers.
Virgin were left feeling rather baffled by the decision, insisting that they did indeed offer a faster minimum speed (guaranteed) than its competitors.
The advert was supposed to communicate the message that Virgin customers are guaranteed a minimum Wi-Fi download speed of 30 Mbps. This guaranteed minimum speed is faster than the minimum speed offered by other providers. If Virgin customers find that their minimum download speed was not met, they would then be given a credit towards their bill.
In comparison to Virgin’s minimum guaranteed download speed of 30 Mbps, Vodafone’s equivalent is 10 Mbps. Hence the claim in their advert, albeit a potentially misleading one.
Despite Virgin’s explanation, the ASA upheld the complaint from Vodafone and agreed that the information presented in the advert was misleading to customers.
There is a subtle difference between ‘guaranteeing the highest speed and offering a guarantee which promised action by the advertiser if a minimum speed was not met’ which led to the ASA’s decision to ban the advert.
They weren’t convinced that the majority of potential customers watching the advert would have understood the actual meaning by the headline claim, but instead would assume it meant that Virgin offered (and guaranteed) they had the fastest Wi-Fi service of all the major broadband suppliers.
In the ASA’s eyes (and likely Vodafone’s) the claim was not substantiated, therefore leading to the conclusion that the advert was misleading.
Virgin were told that they could no longer run the advert, and were not to imply that they could guarantee that they offered the fastest Wi-Fi service of all major broadband providers unless of course that was the case.
Originally appearing on their website on the 3rd July presenting their Wi-Fi guarantee, Virgin further specified that it only applied to customers with access to fibre optic broadband and those opting for their M50 broadband package in which they offer an average download speed of 54 Mbps.
The guarantee was a promise to give the customer a £100 credit if they didn’t get at least 30 Mbps in each room of their home, following up to 3 Wi-Fi signal boosters to help achieve that minimum speed.
Virgin remained adamant that their customers would understand the meaning behind the claims in their advert and were both disappointed and surprised that the ASA ruled it as misleading.
Virgin insisted that they are not the only major broadband provider to promote Wi-Fi guarantees to their customers and even managed to support their claims that consumers understood the meaning of the advert with an independent poll reflecting that the majority did indeed correctly understand what was meant by the guarantee.
