The ad watchdog has sent out a warning to all advertisers to “cease and desist” from voicing garbled and breakneck-speed terms and conditions at the end of radio ads after banning two spots for Paddy Power and Moneysupermarket over the issue.
The measures were first introduced for financial ads in February 2011, when the Consumer Credit (Advertisements) Regulations 2010 came into force in the UK in an effort to protect consumers; they are also required for competitions.
However, it appears many advertisers try to get round the regulations by ratcheting up the voiceover so it sounds like the T&Cs are being read “on speed”. And industry body The Radio Centre has long argued that they drive listeners crazy, merely adding to the spot length – and therefore cost – and actually deter potential advertisers from using radio. It estimates the overall cost to the industry is at least £120m a year.
The Paddy Power and Moneysupermarket ads, which ran in December, triggered only one complaint each – seemingly from the same person – who believed them to be misleading because the T&Cs were spoken so quickly and at such low volume that they were unintelligible.
The Paddy Power ad promoted the firm’s Bet Builder promotion, which offered users a free bet up to £10 if one leg of an accumulator bet was unsuccessful.
In response to the Advertising Standards Authority investigation, the betting firm said that the T&Cs, which did not contradict any claims in the ad, had not been sped up in post-production and they were presented without background effects to ensure full clarity.
After receiving the complaint, Paddy Power said it had reviewed the ad but could find no issue with the volume of the ad and explained that it met the standard specifications for UK radio broadcasters.
In fact, it claimed that as the T&Cs were read in a different voice to the rest of the ad, the volume had actually been raised for that section to take into account any dip in volume as a result of the change of speaker and any difference in tone.
However, Moneysupermarket did acknowledge that the T&Cs relating to savings a listener could make on switching credit cards using its service had been read at a faster speed than the body of the ad.
Even so, it believed that the ad followed the advice of the Radiocentre – the organisation which clears ads – that qualifications should be clear and easily heard and understood by the listener.
But the ASA was having none of it. For Paddy Power, it ruled: “We considered that the wording had been delivered in such a way that listeners would not have been able to take in their full content.
“Because those conditions had not been presented in a clear and intelligible manner, we concluded that the ad was misleading.”
In the Moneysupermarket ruling, the regulator said: “We considered that the T&Cs were spoken at a much faster pace than the earlier part of the ad.
“We considered that the wording spoken in the second voice-over had been delivered in such a way that listeners would not have been able to understand its content.
“Because those conditions had not been presented in a clear and intelligible manner, we concluded that the ad was misleading.”
Banning both ads, the watchdog warned both companies to “ensure significant limitations and material information were presented in a clear and intelligible manner in future ads”.
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