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Vodacom can advertise as SA's best network, says ASA

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 13 Feb 2017
The ASA this month dismissed two complaints by MTN concerning Vodacom advertising.
The ASA this month dismissed two complaints by MTN concerning Vodacom advertising.

The Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) has once again ruled in Vodacom's favour and dismissed a complaint by MTN about a Vodacom advert in which the company claimed to have the "best network" in SA.

The ruling comes hot on the heels of another Vodacom victory, after the ASA earlier this month ruled Vodacom is SA's mobile network with the least dropped calls, dismissing a complaint from MTN that claimed otherwise.

In December, the authority also ruled Vodacom may continue to use its claim of having the "first and best 4G network" in SA.

MTN's lawyers argued the "best network" advertising contained no contextual reference to explain why Vodacom's network was the best. MTN added that irrespective of whether the superiority claim is based on speed or on dropped calls or on overall performance ? it remains misleading for consumers.

The ASA found the commercial under review dealt mostly with the recording, uploading and streaming of videos using smartphones and there is no reference in the commercial to voice calls or dropped calls.

"Accordingly, it is most likely that consumers would understand the claim 'SA's best network', in the context of the commercial as a whole, to relate to network performance in terms of upload and download speeds," the ruling reads.

The ASA used a report from Catalyst Research & Strategy which used data from speed-test intelligence provider, Ookla, to make its decision.

The Catalyst report explained the Ookla data on which it relies provides a summary of the overall download speeds across all network technologies, across all networks, over the period from April to June 2016, as well as the period from July to 6 December 2016.

The data showed Vodacom offered the best overall download performance across all network technologies over those periods. Ookla also vetted and approved the use of this data in order for Vodacom to use the Ookla report when making its claim.

The Catalyst report concluded: "Vodacom provides the fastest overall mobile network speed experience to South African customers... and the data from which these conclusions are drawn are real-life data, representative of all the mobile operators across South Africa."

The ASA therefore ruled Vodacom can continue to use the advertising because evidence showed the claim is neither misleading nor dishonest.

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