ASA bans new Sky+ ad

Sky’s new television ad has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for misleading claims about the digital switchover.

The ASA has ruled that the ad, which features The Royle Family star Sue Johnston, implies that the digital TV switchover will be “technologically complicated” if customers don’t have a Sky+ box – Sky’s set-top box with a personal video recorder.

Advertising agency WCRS created the ad to reach older TV viewers who still watch TV via an analogue set.

In the ad, Johnston says: “I am a simple soul as far as technology goes, but I can manage Sky+.  You just press the button and you can record a whole television series. It’s just so simple. I say to everybody who’s worrying about going digital, don’t worry about it, get a Sky box, then it’s done. So I will become digital without feeling any pain at all.”

In response to complaints about the ad, BSkyB said it was intended to communicate “a clear and reassuring message to viewers about the simplicity of installing and using Sky+”.

However, the ASA said the ad implies that Sky+ is the way to “become digital”, which gives a “misleading impression that digital switchover was likely to be more technologically complicated than it was without Sky”.

“We also considered that the ad implied it was necessary to subscribe to those enhanced services in order to switch over to digital TV when that was not the case,” the ASA said.