ASA bans misleading NOW ad
July 31, 2024
NOW, Sky’s streaming service, has seen one of its online ads banned for being ‘misleading’ by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), after a solitary complaint was upheld.
The home page of the Now website, seen on March 29th, featured an offer for ‘Entertainment 6 Month Saver for £6.99 a month’ followed by details about the plan including the minimum subscription term, the inclusion of free trials for Cinema and Boost and the plans’ cancellation policy. Further Terms & Conditions were listed below in a drop-down section, in small text, stating “Cinema and Boost members only. After your 7-day free trial […] Boost auto-renews at £6 a month, unless cancelled. You can cancel anytime. Ad-free excludes live channels and trailers promoting NOW content. Boost features available on selected content and devices only. See here for more details”. That text hyperlinked to a webpage which included more details of the ‘Boost’ features.
The complainant challenged whether the ad was misleading, as it did not make clear that without the ‘Boost’ upgrade, all NOW membership plans included ads.
NOW acknowledged this – but countered that the presence of ads was not a ‘main characteristic’ of the service. It said: “Ad-supported membership plans were common and well understood by customers [having been introduced in 2015]”. Sky UK added that if ad-free programming was important to a customer, it would expect them to check the Now website to educate themselves on the different membership tiers.
Upholding the complaint, the ASA ruled that “The ad must not appear again in its current form,” adding: “We told Sky UK Ltd t/a NOW to ensure that future ads did not omit material information, such as the inclusion of ads with basic streaming membership plans”.
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