Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were upheld.
Ad description
A circular for Zzoomm, a broadband provider, seen in June, July and August 2025. The circular was enclosed in a windowed-out envelope through which the recipient’s address was visible and stated “Important notice. Disruption in your area”. The letter inside said “Not the disruption you were expecting…But it’s the best kind. Homes across your area are switching to faster, more reliable Full Fibre broadband from Zzoomm – loving the difference […]”.Issue
Five complainants challenged whether the ad was:
- obviously identifiable as a marketing communication; and
- misleading, because it was presented in a way that implied it contained an important notice about broadband disruption in the recipient’s local area.
Response
1. & 2. Zzoomm plc said that the relevant marketing campaign was designed and distributed by a team that no longer worked with them. The campaign was conceptualised in April 2025, before a new team was appointed in June 2025, following a merger. They had no knowledge of the campaign and therefore did not review it. They said that, had they been given the opportunity, they would not have circulated the campaign. They were understanding of why complaints had been received by the ASA, and their response to the investigation was given in their capacity as the newly installed team at Zzoomm.
They confirmed that the campaign had been removed from the market and that the new team in place had greater knowledge of the CAP Code. They believed that the intention was to create a positive disruption for consumers, rather than to mislead them. However, they appreciated that some consumers would have had a negative response based on their experience with civil engineering works associated with broadband installation.
Assessment
1. & 2. Upheld
The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such and must make clear their commercial intent, if that was not apparent from the context. It further stated that marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
The ASA considered that the text “Important notice. Disruption in your area” implied that the letter received was an official communication related to an interruption of service in the recipients’ local area. We further considered that the text “Important notice” indicated a sense of authority to recipients. We also noted the appearance of the envelope, which was brown and windowed. We considered that this further contributed to the overall impression that the circular was official correspondence.
While we acknowledged the presence of the Zzoomm logo on the envelope, we considered that, the inclusion of branding alone was not sufficient to make clear the commercial nature of the communication, particularly when presented alongside wording that suggested an important service update.
In that context, we considered that the contents of the envelope would be understood to contain a formal notice about potential disruption to the recipients’ usual broadband service in the local area. Furthermore, we understood that Zzoomm had previously carried out infrastructure improvements in the relevant areas, and we thus considered that furthered this impression.
The letter stated “Not the disruption you were expecting…But it’s the best kind. Homes across your area are switching to faster, more reliable Full Fibre broadband from Zzoomm […]” and “Broadband disruption… but for all the right reasons”. We considered that, once opened, most recipients would understand that the letter was a marketing communication promoting Zzoomm’s broadband offering. However, because that text was not visible without opening the letter, we considered that it was not obviously identifiable as a marketing communication.
Because the ad implied it contained an important notice about broadband disruption in the recipient’s local area and did not make its commercial intent clear from the outset, we concluded that the ad was misleading and breached the Code.
On that point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 2.1, 2.3 (Recognition of marketing communications) and 3.1 (Misleading advertising).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Zzoomm plc to ensure that their ads were obviously identifiable as marketing communications, and that they did not mislead consumers by presenting them in a way that implied they were important notices about broadband disruption.
