Context
The ASA has investigated two issues EE Ltd had brought against Vodafone Ltd. The issues arose out of an advert placed by Vodafone in January 2021 which stated “Vodafone Official Site – On The UK’s Best Network”. Further text stated “Keep Connecting With Our Unlimited Data Plans On The UK’s Best Network. Our Best Ever Network. Keep Connecting”.
Key points to note
EE Ltd challenged whether the claim “The UK’s Best Network” was misleading and could be substantiated and whether the claims made were verifiable. The ASA has upheld the two issues which were raised.
In relation to the first issue- misleading and capable of substantiation the ASA found:
- Consumers were likely to interpret “The UK’s Best Network”, in the context of an ad which stated “Keep Connecting With Our Unlimited Data Plans On The UK’s Best Network” and “Our Best Ever Network. Keep Connecting. Vodafone Global Roaming” as a reference to technical aspects such as coverage and reliability.
- Because it claimed that Vodafone had been found to be the “best” the ASA considered consumers would see it as an objective comparative claim that Vodafone’s network performed better than the rest of the market in those technical aspects, and that Vodafone had objective evidence to support that.
- Vodafone Ltd did not hold, and so were unable to supply, objective evidence of the kind the ASA considered consumers would expect and which the Code required. It was therefore concluded that the claim was likely to mislead and incapable of being substantiated.
In relation to the second issue- the claims made being verifiable the ASA found:
- At the bottom of the home page of Vodafone’s website, text stated “UK’s Best Network as voted for by readers of Trusted Reviews – October 2020: This award was awarded based on online votes received by readers of Trusted Reviews. Readers were provided with a list of the major UK networks providers [sic] to vote on based on their customer sentiments. The category ‘Best Network Provider’ received 1,007 votes in total and Vodafone received 603 of those votes (59.88%).
- The ASA considered the approach of providing information about a comparison immediately and prominently on the landing page to which consumers were taken would be sufficient to ensure a comparison could be verified. In this case, however, the explanation appeared only in small text among other information at the bottom of the landing page and was not immediate or prominent. In addition it was considered the claim needed to be backed up by objective evidence which showed Vodafone’s network had been found to perform better in technical aspects such as coverage and reliability than the rest of the market. Because the ad did not include such information the ASA concluded that the claim was not verifiable.
Next actions
Whilst we have included this item for information only, we suggest firms take note of the decisions upheld in relation to having substantiation and verifiable evidence for any claims made within advertisements.