Talk Talk ad rapped for exaggerated savings claim
Talk Talk’s television advertising campaign focusing on potential savings for customers has been banned as misleading after a complaint from telecoms rival BT.
The TV ad featured a voiceover saying “Would you like to save over 140 pounds a year on your calls and broadband? Well, it couldn’t be easier” while on-screen text said “Save over £140”.
BT said that the ad was misleading because it exaggerated the savings that customers were likely to achieve by a switch to Talk Talk. It also attacked the claim for being based on savings achieved by customers who had already switched and not on possible savings for customers of other providers.
Talk Talk said that the “Save over £140” text was surrounded by floating question marks in the ad and so the claim was posed as a question and not a statement.
It added that the ad did not claim customers joining would definitely save £140 but instead set out results achieved by previous customers and invited potential sign-ups to take a look.
However, the Advertising Standards Authority said that viewers would interpret the messages as whole-bill savings claims and that the methodology of the survey of Talk Talk customers was not robust enough to support a savings claim.
It ordered that the ad must not be shown again in its current form.
