Vodafone has had to scrap their ‘any website, any time. £7.50 a month’ adverts for mobile phone internet services because the Advertising Standards Authority received a complaint. This complaint apparently challenged whether Vodafone’s advert misleadingly implied Vodafone offers unlimited internet access for the £7.50 per month.

The Advertising Standards Authority backed the complaint stating customers would infer for the advert headline that they could access the internet and many times as they wish for the sum of £7.50 per month. And while there was a 120MB UK data allowance per month disclaimer at the base of the advert, said disclaimer was not prominent enough.

Vodafone responded by saying they did not think the wording ‘any website, any time’ deceived and that the use of the word ‘any’ meant ‘some’ or even ‘the smallest amount of.’ And apparently PCPro says of that quote, it has been lifted directly out of the Collins Dictionary but presented out of context.

Vodafone has been told by the Advertising Standards Authority that it may not use that particular advert again in its present form.

So for once one of the big boys of the mobile arena has received a butt booting for their small print, and to be honest that’s how it should be. Don’t intimate unlimited usage if you really mean restricted usage, and don’t shove a disclaimer down somewhere where you know full well people aren’t going to bother looking. If there must be a disclaimer make it big and bold, or even better make the advertiser say what they actually mean for once.

Maybe others of the same ilk will now take note.

Source — securityproportal