ASA Adjudication on 0800 Reverse Limited

Ad

A TV ad for a reverse call charge service. The ad featured a teenaged boy speaking to a woman who appeared to be his mother. He said "If I'm late or if I have an accident, how am I going to call you without any credit?" His mother replied "0800 Reverse It's the easy way to call reverse charges. Scrolling text at the foot of the screen stated "Service not available to some fixed and all mobile services. Minimum charge of £3.48 payable by call recipient ... For pricing terms and conditions see www.0800reverse.co.uk."

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the call charge information was sufficiently prominent and legible, because he thought the speed of the scrolling text made it very difficult to read that information.

BCAP TV Code

Response

0800 Reverse Ltd (0800 Reverse) said the ad complied with the requirements of the CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code (the Code) and had been approved before it was aired.  They said when the ad is aired in future the on-screen text would be shown for the required time period.

The Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) said the size and legibility of the on-screen text complied with the Code and the BCAP Guidance on On-Screen Text and Subtitling in Television Advertisements (the BCAP Guidance).  They added that the text colour was easy to read against the background of the ad.  The BACC said the disclaimer was half a second short of the length required by the Code but they had decided, on balance, that the text was easy to read.  They told us they advised 0800 Reverse that the on-screen text would have to be shown for an additional 0.4 seconds in future airings of the ad.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted the comments of 0800 Reverse and the BACC and acknowledged that the text size and colour complied with the Code.  However, because of the large amount of information 0800 Reverse intended to convey to viewers through the scrolling text which moved at speed, we were concerned that the important pricing information was not sufficiently prominent.  We noted the BCAP Guidance suggested that text should be held on screen for a specified period of time, depending on the number of words used, but considered that the information in the scrolling text did not appear on-screen for sufficient time for most viewers to be able to read it without difficulty.  We concluded that the presentation of the call charge information was not sufficiently legible for it to be easily absorbed by viewers in one viewing.

The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code Rule 5.4.2 (Superimposed text), but not 5.1 (Definition of misleading advertising).  

Action

We told the BACC and 0800 Reverse to amend the presentation of the pricing information to make it more prominent.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)