The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled in favour of a complaint lodged against Cell C, and has ordered the mobile service provider to withdraw its claim of offering the “fastest mobile Internet” in SA.
The complainant, Johannes Roux, lodged the complaint in December last year, questioning the veracity of the claim “South Africa's fastest mobile Internet” as contained in a Cell C television commercial.
Roux also claimed that, despite living in Johannesburg South, which was presumably covered by Cell C, he was unable to connect to the “fast” network.
Since the complaint was lodged in December 2010, the ASA dismissed this part of the claim on the basis that Cell C was in the process of rolling out its higher speed network, and has since covered the whole of Johannesburg.
The claim questioning the speed of the network was, however, upheld by the ASA.
The same claim was previously the subject of a complaint against Cell C by MTN, in December last year. The complaint was, however, dismissed on the basis that the claim was qualified as it was based on a survey conducted by Speedtest.net in September 2010.
“From this it is clear that the context in which the claim is made is material,” states the latest ASA ruling.
“The directorate found the claim 'delivers the fastest mobile Internet in SA' to be unsubstantiated, as it did not make reference to the relevant 2010 broadband survey on which the claim was based.”
Qualified 'whoosh'
In the present matter, the commercial shows a USB stick flying through space and entering the earth's atmosphere at a high speed. The voice-over says: “SA's fastest mobile Internet is here. Experience it now with two gigs of data from only R149 per month. Now that's whoosh.”
“Unlike in the Cell C speed/MTN matter, the current television commercial contains no qualifying information or reference to the results of the broadband survey,” says the ASA.
“The directorate is not convinced that results of a survey nearly eight months old are still 'current' and has 'market relevance', particularly given the respondent's continuing rollout.
“The claim 'SA's fastest mobile Internet' in its current format is unsubstantiated and in breach of Clause 4.1 of Section II of the Code.”
The ASA has ruled that the claim must be removed and cannot be used again in its current format.
Cell C did not respond to questions by time of publication.
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