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Counting the true cost of U.K. broadband has become so difficult the regulators have stepped in.
Describe your favourite broadband advert. Difficult, isn’t it? That’s because no-one has, or should admit to having one.
Anyone who does, who openly discusses it, and who isn’t being paid to do so, should be treated with suspicion.
Off the top of my head, I can recall that BT has got a bit carried away, enlisting Hollywood A-listers Ewan McGregor and Willem Defoe to front its most recent campaign, while Sky – ever the content king – has borrowed characters from popular animated movies like Toy Story and, most recently, Kung Fu Panda.
Virgin Media did some ads with sprinter Usain Bolt but that was a while ago now; ads from BT’s low-cost arm Plusnet feature a mildly misanthropic Yorkshireman; and TalkTalk…err…TalkTalk…No. Nothing; not a sausage. It was hacked. That is honestly what I think of when I think of TalkTalk, and it seems I’m not the only one.
Try and pick a favourite out of that lot.
The actual price of the service being advertised is eminently forgettable too, because all telcos offer similar discounts. It can also be taken as read that the price floating across the TV screen in big flashing numbers doesn’t reflect the full monthly cost, let alone lifetime cost, of the service. Don’t forget up-front costs like connection charges or delivery fees usually apply too. They may as well price their service in groats or Liquorice Allsorts, for all the sense it makes.
However, that could all change from the end of May thanks to the combined might of telco regulator Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
They too have cottoned-on to the fact that advertised broadband prices are effectively meaningless.
They surveyed 300 U.K. adults and found that only 23% could correctly identify the total cost per month of broadband upon first viewing an advert. After watching the ad again, 22% still failed to figure out the correct cost.
64% of those participants who didn’t get it right after two viewings believed that the headline price being advertised constituted the total monthly cost of the service, forgetting charges such as monthly line rental, for instance.
Unsurprisingly therefore, 81% of the total sample group weren’t able to calculate the lifetime cost of the broadband package.
Meanwhile, 74% said that information regarding one-off costs such as connection fees, and information about the cost of service after an introductory offer period has expired, was either fairly unclear, or very unclear.
"Advertising works better when it’s trusted," said ASA chief executive Guy Parker, in a statement on Thursday.
"It’s essential we make sure people aren’t misled by pricing claims in broadband ads," he said.
The ASA said it will suggest that telcos advertise all-inclusive up-front and monthly costs, give greater prominence to the contract length, as well as any post-discount pricing where applicable.
"Ofcom wants to see clear and accurate broadband prices for consumers," said Ofcom CEO Sharon White. "Our research with the ASA shows many people are confused by complicated adverts and offers, so we welcome the ASA’s plans to simplify broadband advertising."
The research garnered a mixed response.
Virgin Media CEO Tom Mockridge said the ASA should focus more on advertised connection speed, pointing out that under the current rules, ISPs can advertise a headline speed even if it is only available to 10% of customers.
The ASA "should ensure consumers can compare broadband deals on the things that really matter, and this includes speed," he wrote in a blog post on Friday.
The Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA) agreed that many other factors besides price influence prospective broadband customers, and that more research is required in order to corroborate Ofcom and the ASA’s findings.
However, TalkTalk is all in favour of reform, calling on Ofcom to address it as part of its strategic review.
"It’s obvious that a single headline price is much clearer and better for customers, and we’re actually already doing it on a pilot project up in York," the telco said in an emailed statement.
Indeed, TalkTalk offers an all-in price of £21 per month for the fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) service it is currently rolling out there.
"But until the whole market moves to single prices, any company that advertises its products like this will struggle to compete with what look like better deals from other providers," the company said.
It will be interesting to see how U.K. telcos adapt their advertising to accommodate these new guidelines, and what the response will be from consumers.
In all likelihood the telcos will pitch a message of up-front honesty, free from marketing spiel. As for consumers, well, they’ll probably notice the change, but I doubt we’ll all be talking about our favourite broadband adverts any time soon.
