Response from ASAI re Eircoms Time "BB"

zod

Got this in the post Friday,<Snip>

TimTim

You do realise that they asked you to keep that report confidential.

Hence the confidential at the top of the page which seems to be missing from your scan.

It stupid things like that, that turn people against us.

If they think we can't be trusted to keep things hush hush until they release their offical report they'll simple stop sending them out.

eircomtribunal

zod wrote:

Got this in the post Friday, seems the complaint was upheld to a fashion.

Well done zod and all others who took the time and effort.

Now the time restriction will have to be prominently highlighted in all advertising.

The effect of an ASAI ruling is rather minimal unless the media takes up and highlights a decision.
The ASAI are no statuary body (they have no legal base at all), they are merely an industry fig-leave operation to protect the industry against legal action or action by the (useless and therefor to be replaced) statuary body ODCA.

The ASAI currently run a consultation about changes in their rules etc. It might be worthwhile to send some proposals to them. Most important IMO would be giving the ASAI the power to act directly when a new add is questioned, rather than write about it weeks, or possibly months after the ad is long over.

With regards to the confidentiality of the letter they sent to you as a private person having taken the action: If they are really keen to have this info confidential they should make it clear to you in understandable terms. Like: Please keep this information confidential until such time, when we will announce the decision to the public etc.
P.

damien

I got the same letter. It explicitly states this is NOT a final decision and they explicitly asked for the letter to be kept confidential. Zod, I'd suggest deleting the post until the final decision.

Sponge Bob

it is final.

the ASAI are muppets IMO , they lump complaints of a subtly but importantly different nature in with each other and issue one decision on one part of the overall complaint set, refusing to address the rest.

This then frees up Eircom to reoffend persistently on those unaddressed portions .

eircomtribunal

Sponge Bob wrote:

they lump complaints of a subtly but importantly different nature in with each other and issue one decision on one part of the overall complaint set, refusing to address the rest.

This then frees up Eircom to reoffend persistently on those unaddressed portions .

Even on the addressed portions ASAI can do nothing to hinder the ongoing breach of their "Standards".
Example from ASAI bulletin 5/1, where a complaint against Eircom Phonewatch using fear in their ads, was upheld:

Conclusion:

Complaint Upheld.

The Code of Advertising Standards requires that an advertisement should not cause fear or distress without good reason such as the encouragement of prudent behaviour or the discouragement of dangerous or ill-advised actions. In such cases the fear aroused should not be disproportionate to the risk.
They noted that they had suggested previously to the advertisers that care should be taken not to cause fear or distress and were disappointed that the advertisers continued to advertise in the same manner. They upheld the complaint.

ASAI's statement on their website
"Where the Committee decides that an advertisement or sales promotion has contravened the Codes, it will be withdrawn."
is rather meaningless. It sounds good, that's all.

Another thing:
"• The ASAI accepts complaints from any person or body who considers that an advertisement or sales promotion may be in breach of their Codes.

• The Codes cover paid-for advertising and sales promotions in all Irish-based media e.g. newspaper, radio, TV, direct mailings, emails, cinema, poster and outdoor advertising.

What about advertising or sales promotion on web sites? Somebody posted here on boards that ASAI refused to deal with those. That would be quite extraordinary..

P.

eircomtribunal

And then the "quality" of ASAI's decisions!
Look at this (is it only me, or is it impossible to link to specific ASAI pages?):

"Product: Computers/Telecommunications
Advertiser: Esat BT
Medium: Television
Complaint:

Advertising for a broadband trial by Esat BT was the subject of an objection. The complainant stated that while the offer was advertised as having no catches, he was unable to avail of it because he had a phone monitored alarm system. He stated that the advertising did not refer to this restriction.


Code Section: 2.22 (2001 Edition)


Response:

The advertisers stated their no strings attached broadband trial related to the fact that their broadband trialists could avail of broadband for three months without paying Esat BT anything, so it was completely free. Customers with a monitored alarm system can in fact avail of the broadband trial if they disconnect their alarm themselves (currently Esat BT engineers do not offer this service). Alternatively if a customer with a monitored alarm ordered a second phone line they would be able to avail of the free broadband trial.


Conclusion:

Complaint Upheld.

The Code of Advertising Standards requires that an advertisement should not mislead by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise.

The Complaints Committee noted the advertisers’ response. They considered that the restriction in relation to phone monitored alarms was a major condition and in these circumstances the use of the term “no strings” was misleading."

damien

There is a forum on Advertising and Marketing. I'd suggest that general discussion about the ASAI should occur there.

eircomtribunal

zod wrote:

<Snip>

Not in time, it seems.

P.

juliuspret

“Broadband Time has proved extremely popular so far and we have received no complaints directly about it.”

Enough said!

TimTim

The ASAI investigated the advertisements earlier this summer, after receiving about 14 complaints alleging that the advertisement was “misleading, confusing and exploitative'‘.

Nice to see after all the ranting and raving so many are willing to put their names to something.

Maybe its just an irish thing....

damien

TimTim wrote:

Nice to see after all the ranting and raving so many are willing to put their names to something.

14 is pretty good I would have thought. All of them probably came from IrelandOffline.

TimTim

damien.m wrote:

14 is pretty good I would have thought. All of them probably came from IrelandOffline.

After seeing the thread about it in broadband, I would of been a bit more hopeful, however those 14 complaints seem to enforce the point in ASAI, so it not all bad.

Which brings me to the next question. You sent it out on the IO mailing list right? How many people are on that?

damien

TimTim wrote:

Which brings me to the next question. You sent it out on the IO mailing list right? How many people are on that?

1900.

Morgoth

Jeez, 14 out of 1900. Things like that make me want to go to the AGM and stop being such a lurker. ;x

damien

Morgoth wrote:

Jeez, 14 out of 1900. Things like that make me want to go to the AGM and stop being such a lurker. ;x

Please do come along.

eircomtribunal

While it is no longer visible on the ASAI web site, they will still accept responses to their consultation about their Code until the end of next week.

Simply mail your response to info@asai.ie with the reference "response to Code consultation".

Your response can be very informal and simple. Any response is worthwhile, and even if it's only in the sense of the lady, who pissed into the sea muttering "any little bit helps".

If anybody is interested, this is the response I sent to them:

"Response to the current ASAI consultation on its Code


From my personal experience of having made some complaints to the ASAI I would suggest the following changes to the Code:

1. When ASAI says "ASAI EMPHASISES ITS WATCHDOG ROLE FOR ALL MEDIA", then this is not representing reality, as the medium of the Internet is specifically (and incomprehensibly) excluded from ASAI's remit.
This has the effect that companies which carry out a substantial part of their advertising on their own web sites, can do so with no regard to the ASAI codes.

I suggest to include the media of the Internet, even if it is not in the form of third party advertisements, into the remit of ASAI. Brochures, which are also not third party advertisements are already included, so it should be a natural thing to do the same with the equivalent of brochures on the Internet.


2. I had the experience that ASAI refused to deal with a complaint, arguing they would not deal with complaints that had or were being investigated by other "regulatory etc. bodies". This makes no sense in most cases.
In my case, the ODCA had dealt with my complaint and not found enough substance to bring the advertiser to court for breach of the consumer act. Now this is a very different thing from the ASAI code. The fact that an advertisement was found not to have been a breach of the Consumer Act by the ODCA, (which in simple terms will only deem an advertisement illegal if a direct material damage to the consumer as a consequence of the advertisement can be proven), says nothing about the advertisement in question being in breach of the ASAI code.
In fact, most of the complaints that were upheld by the ASAI would, if they had been brought to the ODCA, not have been deemed to be in breach of the Consumer Act.
I suggest to abolish this exclusion (whereby the ASAI will not deal with complaints that are of have been brought to the attention of other regulatory bodies), or only make it applicable to exclude genuine replication of work, which in my opinion would be a rare incident.

3. The ASAI should have stronger and faster enforcement tools.
In most cases an ad that is found to fall foul of the ASAI code has long done its "work" when the ASAI publishes its findings. The consequences of being found in breach of the ASAI code are minimal for the company.

ASAI should have the power to halt the publication of advertisements until a thorough examination has taken place, if they deem this adequate in specific cases.

Otherwise ASAI is relegated to the task of bolting the stable doors after the horses have fled – but then that may be exactly the role the industry wants to have for its self-regulatory body?"

P.

WizZard

Response sent

cgarvey

The Case Report has been approved by the complaints committee (and no longer is confidential!).

Complaints were upheld in relation to:

• Not for ASAI to pick correct definition, but accepts that BB Time is different to previous offerings, and so eircom should say as much in advertising.
• eircom in breach of the code, for not mentioning the time restriction in radio advertising
• Special offer monthly rental ommitted
• Line rental/access equipment charges not included

Smart's "20 times faster" complaint was not upheld. They also note (and rightly so) that the confidentiality of the draft was breached. The SPB ignored this confidentiality request. It's more than possible that the posting here had some part to play in that, which is not good. The decision will be in the next ASAI bulletin.

.cg

eircomtribunal

cgarvey wrote:

The Case Report has been approved by the complaints committee (and no longer is confidential!).

Complaints were upheld in relation to:

• Not for ASAI to pick correct definition, but accepts that BB Time is different to previous offerings, and so eircom should say as much in advertising.
• eircom in breach of the code, for not mentioning the time restriction in radio advertising
• Special offer monthly rental ommitted
• Line rental/access equipment charges not included

...They also note (and rightly so) that the confidentiality of the draft was breached. The SPB ignored this confidentiality request. It's more than possible that the posting here had some part to play in that, which is not good. The decision will be in the next ASAI bulletin.

.cg

And such consumer misinformation will now have severe consequences for Eircom: The report will be published on ASAI's website!
There might even a few lines be published in one of the newspapers!
Eircom then can make up another misinforming ad, with a different skew and the game can begin anew.

I would not worry one bit about the premature boards post in this matter. The whole ASAI is too farcical to be taken all that serious.
P.

cgarvey

Agreed that the process is completely worthless (with no repremand, and almost always after the ad campaign has run), but I would be worried about the premature post. If that was the source that SPB used (thereby bypassing the agreement they have, via NNI, about ASAI confidentiality), then that disreputes IrelandOffline, and may have an affect on how other parties perceive the trustworthiness of IoffL. Legalities aside.

.cg

dahamsta

The post was edited less than three hours after it was posted by someone that isn't directly associated with IrelandOffline. Frankly, I find this implicit acceptance of guilt more disreputable than the original incident. IrelandOffline did the right thing. What's the problem?

cgarvey

Ken Shabby wrote:

The post was edited less than three hours after it was posted by someone that isn't directly associated with IrelandOffline. Frankly, I find this implicit acceptance of guilt more disreputable than the original incident. IrelandOffline did the right thing. What's the problem?

No "problem" as you put it. I merely expressed an opinion, which I think I wrote as best as I can. It was posted on the IoffL forum. I would have thought that you, in your capacity as a previous chairman, would appreciate a) that not all the industry players can isolate IoffL member and non-member postings here, and b)IoffL relies heavily on it's trustworthiness.

dahamsta

cgarvey wrote:

not all the industry players can isolate IoffL member and non-member postings here

Industry players have cut themselves off from IrelandOffline in the past because of this kind of crass stupidity, to their detriment. If IrelandOffline was to attempt to offend no-one at all, it would have to just sit there and smile inanely, and not actually say or do anything.

Someone either made a mistake or intentionally broke the rules, it was dealt with, story over, move on. Surely there's more important things to be thinking about or doing?

Blaster99

Ken Shabby wrote:

... story over, move on. Surely there's more important things to be thinking about or doing?

The only one keeping the story alive is you.

dahamsta

Blaster99 wrote:

The only one keeping the story alive is you.

You just kept it alive for another 22 minutes. Are we done now?

cgarvey

Ken Shabby wrote:

Industry players have cut themselves off from IrelandOffline in the past because of this kind of crass stupidity, to their detriment

I fail to see how you could think that a telco breaking contact with IoffL, because they (correctly or incorrectly) disputed their trustworthiness, is to their detriment and not IoffL's, but that is your opinion.

I guess that's part of the whole do we use politics (and, therefore, bite our tongue alot) or do we use action. Having tried both, I think the former has worked better, but you'd probably disagree (not trying to provoke you, just that I think that you prefer the action rather than talking way of doing things).

If IoffL lost contact with the telcos, ComReg/DoCMNR, etc., then I think, they're on a slippery slope.

Ken Shabby wrote:

Someone either made a mistake or intentionally broke the rules, it was dealt with, story over, move on. Surely there's more important things to be thinking about or doing?

Story isn't over though, because it will be mentioned again in the ASAI bulletin, and presumably in some press. I'm over the zod thing (which I had no original involvement in anyway), if that's what you're referring to in particular. Finally, I do have much better things to be doing, we agree on one thing, but that doesn't mean I can't have an opinion, though, whatever it may be.

Sponge Bob

Sponge Bob wrote:

it is final.

the ASAI are muppets IMO , they lump complaints of a subtly but importantly different nature in with each other and issue one decision on one part of the overall complaint set, refusing to address the rest.

This then frees up Eircom to reoffend persistently on those unaddressed portions .

I see no reason to withdraw this comment. The ASAI are a pack of tools in my opinion and are neither honest nor trustworthy in their role.

The ASAI finds against the same companies again and again because the same companies reoffend all the time. Yet the ASAI does not bring in a fast track procedure to deal with these liars , preferring instead to kill off all comment on these lies in the media by issuing misleading and incomplete interim decisions and insisting on secrecy for this farce .

The ASAI should cop itself on and do something serious against persistent offenders , they know who these are .

I speak as someone who never lost a 'case' with the ASAI but I feel that the ASAI are useless ......or worse.:mad:

They are fair game for anyone who wants to say it like it is IMO !

dahamsta

cgarvey wrote:

I fail to see how you could think that a telco breaking contact with IoffL, because they (correctly or incorrectly) disputed their trustworthiness, is to their detriment and not IoffL's, but that is your opinion.

The emphasis was a bit much I suppose, however I do honestly think that not engaging with IrelandOffline ultimately hurts providers more than IrelandOffline. If more of them did it, more often, and earlier, I'm pretty sure we'd be a lot further along this pothole-pitted road we're on right now. Which would mean a healthier market, higher demand, bigger market shares, higher turnovers, cetera cetera.

Up until Damien and his crew took over - I'm including my own terms with the group - IrelandOffline didn't have a whole lot to lose; and since this is the only occasion something like this has really come up since then, I'm genuinely having difficulty understanding why you are - or were, obviously we're just discussing semantics now - making an issue out of it. Particularly when the post in question hasn't actually been cited as the source of the problem by anyone yet.

I guess that's part of the whole do we use politics (and, therefore, bite our tongue alot) or do we use action. Having tried both, I think the former has worked better, but you'd probably disagree (not trying to provoke you, just that I think that you prefer the action rather than talking way of doing things).

TBH I don't think IrelandOffline is doing one or the other at the moment, I think it's doing both. It's engaging politically on the one hand with meetings and suchlike, and taking action on the other with press briefings (FUD busting) and member interaction. Some elements, like the surveys, even transcend both philosphies.

And I'm delighted with that, and I'm not provoked, and I don't disagree. I simply think that concentrating in any way on something like this is touching political correctness, and that's what led to the group going too far down the political path in the past. Which didn't work.

Of course you're completely right in your assertion that I'm an advocate of action, and I'd like to see more of that from IrelandOffline; or more accurately a little loud, aggressive, headline-catching action; particularly in light of the bad news that keeps cropping up of late. But I certainly wouldn't like to see political IrelandOffline left by the wayside. No way José.

(Of course you have a right to an opinion, and I'm not telling you to shut up or stop. I'm just saying I think it's wrong. )

adam

damien

Ken Shabby wrote:

even transcend both philosphies.

I see you got promoted to management.

dahamsta

damien.m wrote:

I see you got promoted to management.

Nah, I found religion. You haven't noticed my rants from the pulpit?