Bits, not bytes
A consumer recently lodged a complaint against Internet Service Provider – Cybersmart – about their radio commercial promoting their ADSL service. The advertisement, using the national anthem as a melody, states inter alia “…nana broadband ADSL, 384 Kilobytes na..na what a great price, one hundred and sixty nine Rand…”
Mr. Porter-Smith lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA), saying that the advertisement is misleading as the ADSL service advertised has a speed of 384 Kilo ‘bits’ per second and not 384 Kilo ‘bytes’ per second.
Cybersmart responded saying the incorrect term was used to ‘jog the memories of uninformed Internet users’ and exercise poetic license to rhyme ‘bytes’ with ‘price’. Cybersmart added that the average consumer at whom the product is aimed does not understand the intricacies and technical differences between a kilobit and kilobyte and as such is not likely to be mislead in the manner alleged by the complainant.
Cybersmart said that the advertisement was aired 540 times over the last 18 months and resulted in 6 000 new subscribers, and that this was the only complaint received.
The ASA was not convinced by Cybersmart’s arguments, saying that a reasonable person would believe that the product offered has a speed of 384 Kilobytes per second, and would therefore be misled.
The ASA ordered Cybersmart to withdraw the advertisement with immediate affect and not use it again in its current format in future.
ADSL speed advertising discussion
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