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THE ADVERTISING STANDARDS Authority for Ireland has upheld a complaint made by mobile operator Three against Meteor for its “more than you can eat data” promotion.
The query related to a television advertisement that directed people to the Meteor website, where customers could read about the “more than you can eat data offer”.
Three argued that this offer was not only similar to its “all you can eat data” offer, but that the Meteor ad was misleading as it was Three who offered the most data.
The ASAI concurred with Three, and ordered Meteor not to use the advert in the same form again.
The advert
The video, a version of which appears above, opens with an image of a clifftop building, called “Meteor HQ”.
A male voiceover said: “Well we’re not just giving you all you can eat data, we’re giving you more than you can eat data with unlimited access to your favourite social networks plus 15gbs of 4G data and unlimited calls for just €20 top up. Meteor we get it”.
On its website, it said that its deal offered “more than you can eat Youtube” . In the terms and conditions, however, it is pointed out that “you will have unlimited access to YouTube until 28 February 2017″.
The complaint
Three said the variety of deals on offer from Meteor capped data at allowances of 10gb, 15gb and 30gb, while its own “all you can eat” offer did not have any data cap.
It argued that Meteor provided free data to specific sites, such as Facebook and Whatsapp, while Three’s offer was not restricted to just those sites.
It said that the Meteor’s advertising was misleading because Three was the operator which offered “more”.
Meteor’s offer was misleading, Three said, for offering their product as superior.
Rebuttal
Meteor, however, contended that their advert did not make any reference to Three or that company’s product offerings.
The “more than you can eat data” slogan was used to highlight their campaign aimed at a particular segment of customers who wanted “more for free”, Meteor argued.
The operator said that it had clearly differentiated between what was unlimited (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc.) and what was limited, by emphasising that it all came with 15gb of data.
It also said it never claimed either implicitly or explicitly that its product was superior to Three’s.
“Breach of code”
In its judgement, the ASAI determined that there was a “clear indication” that Meteor was “claiming to offer more than their competitors and that consumers would see this claim as such”.
The ASAI said that claims of a product being superior requires substantiation.
The agency also noted that the unlimited access to YouTube was actually only over a limited period of time, and customers would likely use their 15gb allowance quickly if they believed that Youtube data was unlimited.
The committee concluded that the advertising had not been clear in content and was likely to mislead consumers and to be in breach of Section 3.2, 4.1, 4.32 and 4.33 of the Code.
“The advertising should not be used in the same format again,” the ASAI concluded.
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What??? You mean 131 didn’t work… Noooooooo!!!
Everyone is waiting for 132s
So less buy the 131′s and more buy the 132′s meaning that, overall, the same amount of cars are bought this year.
Feckin brainless spanners, the gombeens that came up with this. Didnt we all say this would happen.
*sigh*
here is an idea. Scrap VRT car sales go up.
Exactly
Which would reduce our tax base and increase the money we spend on imported goods. If you want to support an industry there are better ones to choose.
Great for people working in car factories …. Which we don’t have … I’d rather see an incentive to maintain old cars ( using labour in Ireland), than send money out buying new cars …
Daft to encourage purchase of new cars and send €6,000,000,000 out of the Irish economy every year.
Dafter to use borrowed money to do it and give the banks 9% interest in the process.
NCT was supposed to prolong the national fleet and prevent wasting money in unnecessary early replacement. Car life longevity is what “smart economies” do: USA 10 yrs avg: Sweden 10.7 yrs avg: Germany 8 yrs avg.
Do the Irish not get it?
€6 bn would create a lot of jobs if spent in the Irish economy instead of “exported”!
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http://www.CarTaxPetition.net
So, fewer people can afford new cars? Well holy jaysus. That’s a surprise!
Just a few things on car sales, As with the UK you should be able to buy a reg for your car making a 99D into a 01C and so on, Motor tax should be scraped and put on fuel with rebates to business users and taxi, haulage etc.. NCT on cars over ten years old should be from the day of the test and not this stupid system of the date of first registration making Jan- April the busiest in the test centres.
Is the VRT not illegal in accordance with EU regulations? So we cannot blame the EU for that one.
Seemingly the mobility allowance was illegal too, they were able to scrap that..
It should be noted that we don’t make cars here. Our attempts to prop up and assist the motor trade in this country is madness. We should be actively discouraging the purchase of new cars as cars are one of Germany’s biggest exports. It is one of the best ways for us PIIGS to strike back at the Germans and encourage them to give us the debt forgiveness we so desperately want.
Do u still have that passat Ciaran….
Oh my god!…and that’s coming from an agnostic. I always refrain from this question but here it goes….Are you fckin stupid?! Kill Irish jobs put of spite is your suggestion?
I do. Second hand mind so the Germans got that money off some other gorp. I did put ‘new cars’ in the comment mind. Wouldn’t have to be long term, just long enough to have the desired effect.
Who is an agnostic and what’s that got to do with the price of bread?
Yes unfortunate side effect but I think most would agree that we are sending enough money towards the German economy…
Once you go black you never go back
black the most popular colour, reflects the mood of a nation..
Goes well with everything?
And it’s slimming ;)
also don’t have to wash it as often..
why no green cars in the emerald isle? is it because they are unlucky?
Most popular colour suits well to the situation on the market…
The property tax and water charges may possibly add to that also. We should be cutting our spending instead of new taxes. This would eliminate the need to “broaden the tax base” as Noonan regularly cites.
Why would I buy a new car? It’s got 4 wheels and drives just like every other car over the last 30 years! It will cost me several g’s, most of it tax and the tax man then rips me a new one every time i fill so I can drive to work to pay his tax bill.
State backed scrappage scheme ?…. anyone? ……. modified first time home buyers grant? …. anyone? ….. guess not. …. government have a short memory. … and very limited imagination or understanding of demand side economics
It is great to see an ignorant idea fall flat on its face.
I think it’s heavily linked to how much people have to spend rather than an extra digit on the number plate. The masses have spoken when it comes to buying new cars, we can’t afford them. Also with engineering and manufacturing so good these days a car will run for years and years without needing to be changed, people know that, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. The whole problem was the fascination of the numbers on the reg plate which lead people to think they needed a knew car when in fact they didn’t; wanted yes, needed, no! We are in a time of needs not wants
Volkswagen at No 1 possibly as much to do with VW have its own finance vehicle with attractive interest rates as well as a good product range … As long as banks don’t lend or lend at near credit card rates , then car sales will remain in free fall and VRT receipts reducing in line ….
Personalized number plates would have been a good idea a money spinner and at least those that could afford it would have got some joy from it . . A sort of fun tax for a Change .
good news!
We need to see a whole year’s sales data to determine if the trend in sales of new cars is up or down. The new registration system was brought in to do away with the January spike and spread sales out over the whole year (not because it’s 2013 and superstitious wouldn’t like 13 on their reg plates, as several people have suggested.) Many people will hold off till the 132 reg comes out in July. Sales are down in January and February this year compared to last, but that shortfall should be recouped in the latter part of the year.
Car industry in UK kept 13 plates,the first of which were sold today and they are selling multiples of numbers being sold here without any fuss over superstition etc.
131 and 132 reg plates have nothing to do with superstition. Next year we’ll have 141 and 142 plates, and the year after we’ll have 151 and 152 plates. There are very good reasons for it, just as the UK has a split-year registration system too. When we had one year on the reg plate, sales (and new vehicle registrations) were concentrated in the early part of the year. There is a knock-on effect of this in that most NCTs fall due earlier in the year, leading to a backlog in testing dates.
It just so happened that the new regime started in 2013, and we all assumed that it was a superstitious aversion to the number 13. It’s not. It makes sense to do this.
So they are not attaching the new number plates securely enough ???. They will take some time to catch on, an more and more of them can be seen on the road … Ummm?
You can have any colour you want, as long as it’s black
I love red in a car, my last car was a green scoda octava kept breaking down, maybe it was the colour drives a corolla now cant compare.
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