NAD Finds Against Charter, Comcast Ads Targeting DirecTV Service; Another Comcast Ad OK
Charter Communications and Comcast should halt ads targeting DirecTV's general service reliability during precipitation, but evidence supports claims in another Comcast ad, said the National Advertising Division (NAD), the investigative unit of the ad industry’s self-regulation system. Charter should stop…
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running one broadcast commercial and certain ad claims in two other broadcast spots that "convey the message” that DirecTV’s satellite service “doesn’t work when precipitation is present,” said a Thursday release from the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council (ASRC). It said DirecTV challenged certain Charter claims, including: “One out of four satellite customers claim they have reception outages in bad weather” and “It’s barely raining. And they call this reliable.” After reviewing a “Barely Raining” commercial, NAD concluded Charter didn’t provide a reasonable basis for its claims that DirecTV’s service problems were “an ordinary consumer experience.” The NAD release noted, “Charter in its advertiser’s statement, said it ‘accepts NAD’s recommendations with respect to the three challenged commercials and appreciates NAD’s recognition that rain fade is a unique issue for satellite television service that cable television does not experience.’” The NAD also recommended Comcast discontinue an Xfinity "rain or shine" broadcast spot that the group determined conveyed the message DirecTV's satellite service "doesn't function during wet weather," another ASRC release said. But the NAD found a Comcast "Farmer's" commercial conveyed a narrower message that satellite-TV service "may be susceptible to service interruptions during some types of severe weather," which was "supported by the evidence in the record." The NAD also said Comcast should discontinue or modify several other claims about its Xfinity cable-TV service. "Although Comcast took issue with certain of NAD's findings, it did agree in its advertiser's statement 'to comply with NAD's recommendations,'" the release said. The NAD is administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus.