Cell C forcing our hand, says Vodacom
Over the weekend Vodacom unveiled their latest broadband offering – a 2GB + 2GB Night Owl data bundle priced at R149 per month.
Vodacom’s offering is a carbon copy of Cell C’s promotional 2GB contract offering which is also priced at R149 per month, but they have added a bonus of 2GB of ‘free’ data between midnight and 5am.
This promotional data offering from Vodacom follows Cell C’s tongue-in-cheek advertising poking fun at Vodacom’s new red rebranding campaign.
Cell C launched television, print, Internet and radio advertisements featuring its ‘Customer Experience Officer (CEO)’ Trevor Noah who says that a ‘lick of paint’ is hardly enough to rival Cell C’s new HSPA+ network.
“The engine that drives Cell C is its leading and completely new HSPA+ 900 MHz network – voted best in the country. ‘Cause it takes more than a lick of paint to be SA’s number 1 network … don’t you think,” says Noah in one television advertisement.
Vodacom did not find these advertisements as amusing as many consumers, and lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA), arguing that Cell C is making unsubstantiated and misleading claims.
Cell C confirmed that they received a complaint about its new advertising campaign from the ASA on Friday which was lodged by Vodacom.
Vodacom explains that they would love to rather spend their time and energy on more important matters like boosting their network performance further and customer service, but that Cell C’s ‘inaccurate and misleading advertising claims’ are forcing them to protect their brand through their latest ASA complaint.
In the latest complaint Vodacom argues that Cell C has no reason to claim that they are the leading cellular network in South Africa and that their broadband speeds beat that of other providers.
Cell C references January 2011 Ookla speed test statistics which showed their superior network performance, but Vodacom’s Jannie van Zyl points out that the latest Ookla stats often shows that Vodacom beats Cell C on average speeds (April 11 2011 Ookla Net Index results below).
Vodacom further argues that Cell C is trying to deceive people into believing they have superior network coverage and are insinuating that they have a more modern network than Vodacom and MTN.
“The Cell C advertising campaign seems to have been constructed to create the impression Vodacom’s network is outdated and performs sub-par compared to the Cell C network which is positioned as technologically superior to the Vodacom network, both in design and in performance,” said Van Zyl.
“Vodacom disputes these allegations and felt it had no choice but to lodge an ASA complaint regarding the statements made or implied by Cell C.”
Van Zyl points out that while there has been a great deal of ASA activity surrounding Cell C’s advertising, Vodacom only lodged a single complaint against Cell C at the authority prior to this one.
“A perception has been created in the press that there is a ongoing “ASA-spat” between Vodacom and Cell C, so it is important to state for the record that Vodacom have only lodged one ASA complaint against Cell C – the original complaint against Cell C’s use of the term 4Gs, in October 2010,” Van Zyl said.
It is understood that Vodacom requested a speedy ruling from the ASA on its latest complaint which may result in a resolution within the next day or two.
Cell C is forcing our hand, says Vodacom << Comments and views
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