Responding to 17 people’s complaints that the Apple advertisement misled them on the speed of the Apple iPhone, Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) determines that the “advertisement must not appear again in the same form”.
Apple made to drop iPhone advert
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld complaints by 17 people who said the TV advert had misled them as to its speed.
Apple UK said it was comparing the 3G model with its 2G predecessor and its claims were “relative not absolute”.
The advert repeatedly stated that the phone was “really fast” and showed news pages and the Google maps service taking just fractions of a second to appear.
Text on the screen said: “Network performance will vary by location.”
After upholding the viewers’ complaints, the ASA said the advert must not appear again in the same form.
It said the advert was likely to lead viewers to believe that the device actually operated at or near to the speeds shown in the advert.
The watchdog concluded: “Because we understood that it did not, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.” (Source: BBC)
It’s not the first time advertisements mislead. Most do anyway. Just like blog titles. Meh.