Virgin media in trouble from major broadband campaign

Virgin have picked up pace in advertising their broadband services to UK consumers. Much of Virgins advertising has previously focused on comparing its package deals or television capability against its main competitor Sky. Recently however, the company has been pushing their broadband service in the wake of the 50 Mbps cable service provided to some areas of the country.

Virgin’s TV service sets it apart from most other Internet providers who usually only offer internet based television services that are limited in scope compared to cable. Virgin is also the fastest provider of broadband in the UK. The company is often criticised for its very stringent views on heavy downloaders however, implementing a restrictive cap on speeds for anyone using their maximum speed to download during peak times.

Despite this, Virgin are still after as many customers as they can get their hands on, and have made their larger broadband packages more appealing with a new scheme called “V Stuff”. It sounds mysterious, but it offers free online storage and free photo prints for new users which get renewed every year. There are a number of companies already offering free or advertising based online storage services. However, with the biggest broadband package Virgin offer, there’s unlimited storage and 1,200 free photo prints a year. It might not be enough to convince everyone, but at least it’s an offer with some substance, and combined with the company’s incredible speeds and cheap broadband deals, it might be enough to attract people who have been sitting on the fence where cable is concerned.

In the same week however things wrong at Virgin when the ASA upheld complaints about an ad run in national newspapers. The ad compared ADSL to cable, claiming that “10 out of 10 homes with our fibre optic broadband can get 20Mb”. Complaints were made by both the ASA itself and long-time Virgin competitor, BskyB stating that Virgin could not possibly be able to provide 20Mbps broadband to all its users all the time. It seems odd that Virgin would trip on this considering that speed is one of the clear advantages of using Cable over ADSL services and misleading comments simply aren’t required to convince most people of its advantages. The ASA have sent Virgin a warning not to print the adverts in their current form.

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