ASA Finds Skype’s Ad Campaign For VOIP Misleading

The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that Skype’s advertising campaign for its Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) which emphasizes the high quality of its video actually overstates the quality of the picture. The company had argued that it is really selling the ability to make and complete a call, not the actual video, but the ASA declined to accept this defense.

The ASA noted the ad did not depict a real time Skype video call but noted the Code did not prevent the use of techniques to overcome technical problems in filming TV ads.  

We understood Skype had sought to mimic the effect of the blurring and slowness users could experience in a real time video call through the movement of the laptop by the new father.  We also noted that the quality of a Skype video call depended upon the speed and quality of a users broadband connection.  Although the sound and picture quality achieved by the filming method used in the ad was not representative of the typical performance that users could achieve, we noted it was representative of the best possible standard which could be achieved.

While we understood the technology would continue to evolve and improve, we considered that viewers would infer that the sound and picture quality depicted in the ad was typical of the performance that all users could achieve.  Consequently, because we understood that that was not the case at the present time, we concluded that the ad could mislead and should therefore have included qualifying text to make clear that performance depended upon the speed and quality of a users broadband connection.

The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 5.1.1 and 5.1.2 (Misleading advertising), 5.2.2 (Implications) but did not breach rule 5.4.1 (Visual techniques and special effects).