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25/04/2012
ASA Criticise Virgin Media For Small Print In Ad
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has criticised Virgin Media for misleading the public by running ads that used fine print so small that it was impossible to read.
The national newspaper ad campaign for its superfast broadband service, which featured Olympian and world record sprinter Usain Bolt, carried the strapline "Faster for a fiver", but small print at the bottom of the press ad outlined various restrictions and terms and conditions running to more than 230 words in length.
The ASA received a complaint that the print was not legible to a "normally-sighted" person, which meant that the ad was misleading.
However Virgin Media said that it used a minimum font size of between 5.5 and 6 points for small print that is "clearly visible to a normally-sighted person", arguing that the "industry standard" for a small print font size of 4 and 4.5 points, meaning that it had provided text "quite a bit larger than average".
The ASA said that the size of the text, hampered by not great quality printing, meant it was "not clearly visible to a normally-sighted person reading the marketing communication once, from a reasonable distance and at a reasonable speed".
"Because the small print was not presented clearly, and contained material information, we concluded that the ad was misleading," said the ASA, which banned it and told Virgin Media to present its small print clearly in the future.
(H)
The national newspaper ad campaign for its superfast broadband service, which featured Olympian and world record sprinter Usain Bolt, carried the strapline "Faster for a fiver", but small print at the bottom of the press ad outlined various restrictions and terms and conditions running to more than 230 words in length.
The ASA received a complaint that the print was not legible to a "normally-sighted" person, which meant that the ad was misleading.
However Virgin Media said that it used a minimum font size of between 5.5 and 6 points for small print that is "clearly visible to a normally-sighted person", arguing that the "industry standard" for a small print font size of 4 and 4.5 points, meaning that it had provided text "quite a bit larger than average".
The ASA said that the size of the text, hampered by not great quality printing, meant it was "not clearly visible to a normally-sighted person reading the marketing communication once, from a reasonable distance and at a reasonable speed".
"Because the small print was not presented clearly, and contained material information, we concluded that the ad was misleading," said the ASA, which banned it and told Virgin Media to present its small print clearly in the future.
(H)
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