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producer’s campaign.
6. Self-Regulation
Topic: Comparative Advertising – TV commercial
Who: Phone Operators
When: October 2004
Where: Italy
What Happened: The leading Italian Telco (A) required action from the Advertising Self-
Regulation’s Jury through a complaint filed against a competitor’s (B)
campaign, which highlighted the appealing low costs of its phone services
and compared the rates of competing phone service operators.
In the commercial a testimonial showed a poster declaring: “this is a A’s bill,
when I was on the phone on carrier A, it was very expensive, for evening trunk-calls
the minute rate is Euro/cent 3,10; now, I’ve switched to carrier B, and it’s only
Euro/cent 2”; furthermore the testimonial claimed: “it is a great difference, isn’t
it? Especially for my pockets”.
During the commercial a headline slide appeared, stating: “The operators’
traffic bonuses are excluded”; moreover in the lower part of the screen, another
headline slide informed: “Comparison among minute rates on July 30th, 2004.
Options and/or special flat rates excluded. Long distance calls from 6.30 p.m. Charge
to reply not included”.
The claimant (A) argued that the comparison was illicit and infringing the
Code of Advertising Self-Regulation (CAP). In particular, Company A
explained that all subscribers to its services every two months were entitled
to receive the following benefits: a 1 1/2 hour bonus of free local calls and a
half an hour bonus of long-distance calls, charge to reply included.
On these premises, A claimed that B in its promotional messages (and in the
context of a comparative advertisement) hid from the public the free calls
bonuses offered by A. Those bonuses, unconditionally applied to all
subscribers, significantly reduced the costs of the phone service delivered,
but such benefits were not correctly perceived by consumers viewing B’s
commercial, where the particular reduction did not emerge from the
statement excluding the bonus from the comparison.
Therefore, according to Company A the commercial resulted in violation of
the Code’s provisions on misleading advertising (Section 2), on denigration
(Section 14) and comparative advertising (Section 15).
Specifically, company A felt that the statement “Operators’ traffic bonuses are
excluded” in B’s commercial was likely to mislead consumers on the actual
costs of calls processed by A, suggesting that B’s rates would always result
cheaper than those applied by A. Finally the complainant considered B’s
statements – suggesting a greedy attitude of A as to service’s costs charged
on subscribers - as denigrating.
Company B argued in its defence that the message was clear in stating that
the comparison concerned only minute rates while bonus and special flat
rates were excluded. The headlines containing such information were sliding
slowly over the screen, were perfectly readable and repeated by the speaker.
As to the denigrating effect, B argued that the commercial was lacking of any
deceptive implication with respect to the competitor’s service.