A British agency has banned Comcast’s Sky Group from distributing a specific digital ad campaign tied to its low-cost streaming TV service called Now TV.
This week, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the problematic ad campaign was connected to a Now TV package called Entertainment, which was discounted from the normal rate of £10 per month. (around U.S. $12.85 per month) to £7 per month (around U.S. $9 per month) under an initiative called “Saver.”
Certain terms and conditions were outlined for the deal, including information that it was only available to subscribers of Now TV’s Cinema and Boost offerings. Boost is an add-on that allows Now TV customers to stream certain recorded and on-demand programming without advertisements; it was included for one week in the deal, then cost subscribers an added £6 per month (around U.S. $7.70 per month).
Customers complained that the offering didn’t make it clear that, unless they continued to subscribe to Boost, content would include unskippable ads. Officials at Sky acknowledged the matter, saying their “ad-supported membership plans were common and well-understood by customers” since they were introduced in 2015, and that subscribers had the duty to educate themselves if they wanted to learn more about the difference between Now TV’s ad-supported and ad-free offerings.
Not so fast, the ASA said this week, after finding that the complaints about the Now TV offering were supported by how the offering was presented online. They noted that Britain’s Code of Non-Broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing, also known as “CAP Code,” requires Sky to include all pertinent information about their offerings in campaign messaging.
“The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information,” the ASA said in its order upholding the complaint. “They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner. Material information was information that the consumer needed to make informed decisions in relation to a product; this included the main characteristics of the product.”
The ASA said it understood that ad-supported plans were becoming more-common in the United Kingdom, and that customers generally understood they must pay extra if they wanted to stream TV content without ads. But that doesn’t absolve Sky of actually informing customers of the difference, and making that distinction abundantly clear in their campaigns and offers.
“We therefore considered that consumers would, at the time the ad was seen in March 2024, expect that free streaming services would include ads, but that consumer expectations for paid services would be mixed,” the ASA determined. “Some may, therefore, expect them to include ads, but many would not expect that to be the case.”
In this instance, the ASA said Sky didn’t include clear and conspicuous messaging about the different plans on its homepage or other webpages that “clearly set out that those plans included ads.” They also said information about the nature of its Boost feature required more than a single click to access, and that the information was typically “at the bottom of a long webpage.”
“We concluded that the ad omitted the material information that the basic Entertainment, Cinema and Sports plans included ads, and did not make sufficiently clear that to have ad-free viewing, consumers must pay an additional cost for the Boost upgrade,” the ASA ruled.
The organization is not prohibiting Sky from offering the same perk now or in the future, but it is preventing the broadcaster from running the campaign again as it did back in March. Sky must also take steps to ensure future ad campaigns and offers comply with the CAP Code, the ASA said.
