Virgin hits back at BT advert

October 10, 2016

The advertising war between BT and Virgin Media has hotted up again, this time with Virgin Media reporting a misleading advert for BT Broadband to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

In follows a similar move by BT in July, who at that time reported a misleading advert for Virgin Broadband to the ASA.

In those adverts, Virgin failed to make its usage caps clear.

Virgin slows down the Internet access of heavy users during peak times to ensure that everyone gets fair access.

The ASA ruled that Virgin’s advert was misleading, and ordered that it be pulled.

Now Virgin, however, have sniffed out a chance for revenge.

The advert that has been reported by Virgin Media claimed BT was the ‘best performing broadband provider, again’.

The claim was based on an independent survey by Eptiro in January 2006 and January 2016.

In the small print at the bottom of the advert, it explained that the accolade only referred to ADSL providers, and as such excluded Virgin Media.

Virgin Media complained to the ASA that the advert was misleading, and the ASA upheld the complaint.

A spokesperson for the ASA said BT’s advert must not appear again in its current form, and that any future adverts claiming that BT is the best provider should be immediately qualified with the term ‘ADSL’.

In recent broadband speed tests, BT’s broadband turned out to be the 7th fastest provider with speeds of less than 2.4Mbps.

Virgin came out top, with average speeds above 6Mbps.