Virgin Media's knuckles rapped over 'misleading' ads -- again

By Nate Lanxon on 05 February 2009, 11:29am

Have you been misled by Virgin Media's broadband ads? According to complaints supported by the Advertising Standards Authority, you could have been.

Virgin Media has had another round of corporate whining upheld against it by the ASA over "misleading" advertisements for its broadband services in the UK.

The ASA ruled that a series of ads led the public to believe traditional ADSL broadband services are now struggling to cope with traffic as a result of video-download services such as the BBC's iPlayer. Additionally, Virgin Media claimed that, while a national fibre-optic Internet service was 20 years away, it already offered a fibre-optic service with "national reach".

One complainant -- Sky, no less -- fought back, telling the ASA that its network was "not struggling to cope with demand", and that Virgin implements traffic management to assist with the loads placed on its networks, whereas Sky's ADSL service does not.

The ASA upheld Sky's complaint, ruling that Virgin Media had "exaggerated the extent of the effect on user experience at the time the ads appeared".

A corporate smack-down was issued by the ASA, which told Virgin not to run these ads again, or the heavies would be round to beat up their children, tread on their toys and eat everything in their fridge.

You can peruse the official ruling here.