Vodafone Group PLC (LSE:VOD) has been ordered to pull several advertisements after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that claims made in three ads about its broadband services were misleading.
The ruling came after BT Group PLC (LSE:BT.A) challenged Vodafone’s assertions that it provided the “same broadband” or “same broadband technology” as BT at a lower cost.
Vodafone suggested that BT customers could switch to Vodafone and get "the same broadband for less”, but BT argued that the performance of Vodafone's services was not identical to theirs, despite using similar network infrastructure.
Vodafone defended the ads, stating that they were meant to inform consumers that broadband services using the same Openreach network technology generally perform similarly.
However, the ASA concluded that the claims were misleading because they implied that Vodafone’s services were nearly identical to BT’s, without providing sufficient evidence.
The ASA also upheld a complaint against a claim in the TV ad, which stated that "millions of BT customers across the UK are realising they can switch to Vodafone and get the same broadband for less".
The ASA ruled this claim was unsubstantiated as Vodafone had not provided evidence to show that millions of customers had switched or were actively considering switching.
It was acknowledged that regulator Ofcom stated that services using the same Openreach infrastructure "tended to perform similarly" and that there were "few differences", but considered it was clear that services were not nearly identical in their performance.
Ofcom's “few differences” between comparable services mentioned several specific providers including BT, but not Vodafone.
Vodafone was instructed to stop running the ads in their current form.