{"id":65372,"date":"2012-11-23T10:01:53","date_gmt":"2012-11-23T08:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=65372"},"modified":"2012-11-23T13:17:17","modified_gmt":"2012-11-23T11:17:17","slug":"cell-c-nails-mtn-in-ongoing-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/65372-cell-c-nails-mtn-in-ongoing-battle.html","title":{"rendered":"Cell C nails MTN in ongoing battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Cell C\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php\/213919-Cell-C\">Cell C<\/a> has forced <a title=\"MTN\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php\/226943-MTN\">MTN<\/a> to pull its advertising campaign for international calls with MTN Zone after they lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (<a title=\"ASA\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php\/306365-ASA-Advertising-Standards-Authority\">ASA<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The MTN print advertisement stated that \u201cFree international calls with MTN Zone, because nothing beats Mahala\u2026Get up to 100% Mahala discounts on MTN international call rates to over 200 countries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cell C argued that international calls on MTN are not free, highlighting the following limitations on the MTN Zone international calling discounts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The discount varies between 10% and 100%<\/li>\n<li>It is only available between 6am to 6pm on weekdays<\/li>\n<li>If you do get a 100% discount, it is only valid for the first hour of the call<\/li>\n<li>Only some countries will ever reach the 100% discount and it is not clear what countries these are<\/li>\n<li>The countries which can reach the 100% discount will vary<\/li>\n<li>The MTN Zone International Discounts are not available to MTN Call Per Second, MTN OneRate, MTN Muziq, MTN TopUp and MTN Contract customers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>MTN circumvented a fight by committing to amend the advertisement and promised to ensure that there is no possibility of confusion in the minds of its consumers and the public.<\/p>\n<p>The ASA has a long standing principle which holds that where an advertiser provides an unequivocal undertaking to withdraw or amend its advertising in a manner that addresses the concerns raised, that undertaking is accepted without considering the merits of the matter.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_65374\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/65372-cell-c-nails-mtn-in-ongoing-battle.html\/attachment\/mtn-zone-mahala-international-calls\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-65374\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-65374\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65374\" title=\"MTN Zone Mahala international calls\" src=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/MTN-Zone-Mahala-international-calls.jpg\" alt=\"MTN Zone Mahala international calls\" width=\"600\" height=\"279\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/MTN-Zone-Mahala-international-calls.jpg 600w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/MTN-Zone-Mahala-international-calls-100x46.jpg 100w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/MTN-Zone-Mahala-international-calls-185x86.jpg 185w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/MTN-Zone-Mahala-international-calls-250x116.jpg 250w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-65374\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">MTN Zone Mahala international calls<\/p><\/div>\n<p>This complaint from Cell C follows an earlier complaint from MTN against Cell C, where the ASA has ruled in favour of MTN\u2019s complaints against radio and TV advertisements by Cell C that are said to poke fun at the yellow network\u2019s \u201cMTN Zone\u201d product.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Related articles<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"Cell C ads \u201cdisparage MTN\u2019s products\u201d\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/59559-cell-c-ads-disparage-mtns-products.html\"><strong>Cell C ads \u201cdisparage MTN\u2019s products\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Cool SA telecoms ads poking fun at the competition\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/general\/57861-cool-sa-telecoms-ads-poking-fun-at-the-competition.html\"><strong>Cool SA telecoms ads poking fun at the competition<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"MTN vs. Cell C: Papa\u2019s got a brand new hater\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/17542\/mtn-vs-cell-c-papas-got-a-brand-new-hater\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>MTN vs. Cell C: Papa\u2019s got a brand new hater<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"ASA rules against Cell C in Vodacom red case\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/19734-asa-rules-against-cell-c-in-vodacom-red-case.html\">ASA rules against Cell C in Vodacom red case<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Vodacom rapped over knuckles for airtime advert\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/54609-vodacom-rapped-over-knuckles-for-airtime-advert.html\"><strong>Vodacom rapped over knuckles for airtime advert<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cell C successfully lodged a complaint against MTN\u2019s international calls with MTN Zone advertisements<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":30702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[351,355,35,42],"class_list":["post-65372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-asa","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-mtn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65372"}],"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=65372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65394,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65372\/revisions\/65394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}