The Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) has ordered Telkom to withdraw a radio commercial where it poked fun at MTN\u2019s \u201cBozza network\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Telkom advertisement promoted its FreeMe mobile products, which it said provides users with 1GB of data, free WhatsApp, free calls, and free Wi-Fi for R99.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a saving of up to 150 bucks compared to other networks. There\u2019s no comparison really,\u201d stated the ad.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo why stay with the bozos [coughs], uhh Bozzas, when you can switch to Telkom, the best data provider.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ad followed MTN promoting its network as \u201cSA\u2019s Bozza mobile network\u201d, and the company did not enjoy Telkom poking fun at its marketing slogan.<\/p>\n
MTN lodged a complaint with the ASA, arguing that the Telkom advertisement ridiculed and disparaged its brand.<\/p>\n
The ASA agreed, saying Telkom\u2019s radio commercial disparages MTN. It ordered Telkom to withdraw the commercial with immediate effect.<\/p>\n
In a follow-up complaint, MTN said Telkom continued to flight the radio advertisement which uses the terms Bozzas and bozos.<\/p>\n
MTN argued that Telkom had exhibited a pattern of disregard for the provisions of the ASA code, and should face sanctions.<\/p>\n
Telkom responded, stating it did not deliberately continue to air the commercial. The company provided emails to its agency as proof that it asked for the commercial to be stopped.<\/p>\n
The ASA agreed that Telkom took all reasonable steps to prevent the advertisement from running again, and dismissed MTN\u2019s complaint.<\/p>\n
Telkom was ordered to pull a radio advertisement where it poked fun at MTN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":145141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[351,8863,35,42,109],"class_list":["post-240328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-asa","tag-bozza","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240328"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240432,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240328\/revisions\/240432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}