Motorola’s “world’s most powerful smartphone” ad banned
Motorola has been ordered to drop its claim that its Atrix device is the “world’s most powerful smartphone”.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that the claim, which has been used as the strapline in Motorola’s multi-million pound global marketing campaign for the device, is misleading.
Complaints challenged Motorola’s claim, saying that the Samsung Galaxy S II i9100 has a more powerful processor.
Motorola responded that the claim was based on the fact that the combined technical features of the Atrix, not just the processor, which it admitted is slightly slower than the Samsung Galaxy S II i9100.
The ASA noted that while the combined features of the smartphone were shown in the ad, some viewers would understand the device to have a faster processor than any other smartphone, which is not the case.
The ad breached BCAP Code rules for misleading advertising, substantiation, exaggeration and comparisons.
The ASA has ruled that the claim “the world’s most powerful smartphone” must not appear again in subsequent ad campaigns.
Motorola’s mobile division was acquired by Google for £7.7bn last week (15 August). The acquisition could see the launch of a “pure Google” smartphone device, a source familiar with the matter told Marketing Week.
