{"id":27757,"date":"2011-06-29T12:01:32","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T10:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=27757"},"modified":"2011-06-29T12:08:05","modified_gmt":"2011-06-29T10:08:05","slug":"cell-c-ceo-takes-on-asa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/27757-cell-c-ceo-takes-on-asa.html","title":{"rendered":"Cell C CEO takes on ASA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cell C is no stranger to advertising complaints, and since the launch of their new 21Mbps HSPA+ network, the operator has been on the receiving end of a number of Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) complaints.<\/p>\n

The most notable complaints revolved around Cell C\u2019s use of the term 4Gs and the company\u2019s popular and humorous advertising campaign poking fun at Vodacom\u2019s red re-branding campaign.<\/p>\n

Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt<\/a> discussed the merits of the rulings in a recent interview with Adlip, saying that ASA operates in a law-free environment where the defendants have no legal recourse.<\/p>\n

According to Reichelt the \u201cASA is doing what the ASA feels is right\u201d, adding that it is important and necessary to have an advertising authority. However, Reichelt feels that how the body operates needs to be examined.<\/p>\n

Reichelt said that in other countries one has legal recourse against advertising authorities, but that this is not the case in South Africa. \u201cThe ASA operates in a law-free environment where they rule and whatever they say is the law. That needs to be reviewed.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

(Video courtesy of Adlip.co.za.\u00a0 Original video here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

ASA rulings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reichelt said that he has extensive global experience in the mobile field, and that South Africa is getting a bit \u2018nit-picky\u2019 at times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to respect that they [ASA] are there and exist,\u201d said Reichelt. \u201cWe certainly don\u2019t try to do anything that is below the belt. We like to play above board and quite frankly a lot of the rulings we have seen are quite strange.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the subject of the ASA\u2019s ruling on technical matters, Reichelt said that he \u2018takes offence in a way\u2019. \u201cIt is very difficult for anybody who is not technical to rule on something as difficult as advanced mobile telephone technology,\u201d said Reichelt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the latest ruling the ASA actually more or less said that physics are different in South Africa than the rest of the world. I don\u2019t know where they get that from,\u201d said Reichelt. \u201cIt gets very difficult and quite frankly a little bit irritating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reichelt advised the advertising industry in South Africa to look at how advertising governance works in other countries and asking what the right way of doing it will be. \u201cIf you compare what is deemed misleading in this country [South Africa] to what is deemed misleading in Europe we are talking miles apart,\u201d said Reichelt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we have at any point tried to mislead the consumer in any way, shape or form,\u201d said Reichelt. \u201cWhat we are doing is to bring high speed Internet to a country that prior to us entering this market has seen no competition nor has it seen any movement on this front.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reichelt added that Cell C are world leaders when it comes to mobile broadband technologies, which benefits the consumer, and to nit-pick on small technical aspects as to whether 21.6Mbps speeds can be used on packaging and in advertisements is not constructive.<\/p>\n

\u201cPredominantly this nit-picking comes from the competition,\u201d Reichelt concluded.<\/p>\n

More videos from Adclip: Lars Reichelt on the mobile broadband race<\/strong><\/a> | Lars Reichelt on data Part 2<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lars Reichelt is not entirely happy about the recent ASA rulings, saying that the bigger picture is that they are benefiting consumers with better broadband<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27759,"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":[19,14],"tags":[351,355,35,1675],"class_list":["post-27757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-cellular","tag-asa","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-lars-reichelt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27757"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27769,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27757\/revisions\/27769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}