So when Apple does it, they are lying but when others do it, it's being creative. What about the thousands of ads out there stretching the truth, why aren't they banned? But I guess what you will resort to is calling us fanboys.
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iPhone advert banned for exaggerating speed
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So when Apple does it, they are lying but when others do it, it's being creative. What about the thousands of ads out there stretching the truth, why aren't they banned? But I guess what you will resort to is calling us fanboys.
Im glad you have posted this, as its been my biggest disappointment and one of the main reasons why i wont buy an iphone. And whats more, it is wrong for apple to advertise that the web is that fast when my n95 (despite loading up less complex pages) is so much faster than my friends iphone.
iPhone advertising was also deemed misleading in august over the 'all of the internet' jargon and lack of flash and java
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/27/apple.apple
In my opinion it is unethical, and even immoral, to knowingly mislead people into buying stuff. I guess the UK government agree as they have set up a standards body to regulate this.
Advertisers will do whatever they can get away with to sell stuff. Before regulation that included tobacco companies saying cigarettes were good for your health. Regulation has ended the worst of it, but there are still many borderline cases. Advertisers are constantly pushing at the limit of legality, particularly Apple in recent years.
People are susceptible to misleading advertising without knowing it (yes, even you and me) by advertisers combining images, text, spoken word and music. If you think it's all harmless entertainment I know who I think is the sucker.
BTW, I'm not sure why you pick up on the word ethics. In case you're interested, Wiki describes ethics as "a major branch of philosophy, encompassing right conduct and good life." Sums it up for me. Personally I view advertising in general as having a corrosive effect on society - one of it's primary tools is to instill a feeling of inferiority in an individual and suggest the fix is to buy such-or-such an item.
Because advertisements are misleading. The company is trying to sell you their product in 30 seconds or so. If I wanted I could probably find something misleading about all commercials out there and get 16 other people to file complaints and get the advertisement pulled down. Why doesn't the agency in the UK pull down all those other misleading ads, it's their job to, ain't it..
What about the coffee ad which shows them brewing coffee in 5 seconds, I sure don't know anyone who can brew coffee in 5 seconds, pizza made in 5 seconds, there are many other examples, why are those commercials still airing. These agencies are completely pointless, if they were doing their job properly they would pull every advertisment off the air for misleading claims.
Why not do just that. May be a better way of spending your time than posting here as you obviously can't (or won't) understand the basic issue, which has been thoroughly explained by several posters already.
Actually, your "argument" that everyone does it reminds me of the TV documentaries where the police stop speeding drivers. One of the most common responses is "everyone else is doing it", or "why aren't you catching real criminals". Doesn't make it right, or legal.
What you're talking about is the 'Network performance may vary' or some such message which has always been there, regarding the connectivity speed.
The recent additional message, which has only been added for the past couple of weeks here in the UK, is to specifically mention that the advert has been editied to speed up performance of the device, not just the supposed connectivity speed.
Doug
The basic issue seems to be that the ASA is both arbitrary and capricious in its decisions. And I gather this from its supporters, by the way, not the people who are against them.
How an agency that acts at random can be effective is not clear to me.
Well, let's start with this, which I agree with:
100% true. You nailed it. This is a nice description of just about every ad. Ok, so you don't make it clear that you're talking about every ad. Well, let's move on to this:
Right on again. I think "everyone is doing it" is a good description about all TV ads. It looks like you agree with me.
So we seem to be agreeing about everything here. But then you go and applaud this group for complaining about Apple ads, but I don't see them giving the same treatment to every other ad on TV.
Thus, I have to conclude that the whole thing is kind of random.
You don't quite have the hang of the forum debate thing, do you. You made a claim earlier, saying:
"The basic issue seems to be that the ASA is both arbitrary and capricious in its decisions. And I gather this from its supporters, by the way, not the people who are against them."
I asked you to substantiate your claim, providing sources and links. Instead you ignore this and carry on regardless. Can I remind you that if you make a claim then it is up to you to provide substantiating evidence. That's how MacRumors forums operate.
I can provide links to 3 cases of Apple being found to have misled UK customers in its adverts. You are saying the ASA is thought to be arbitrary and capricious by its supporters - all I'm asking for is the evidence of that - pretty simple.
Good grief, look at where this is happening, Great Britain. Once a proud, strong country that's now just another European, socialist, nanny state where, when a citizen believes they've been wronged, they run to the Ministry of {fill in the blank} to have their boo-boo kissed.
No, i can read what is on my screen, it very clearly says "sequences sped up", nothing regarding networks or whatever.
Im in the Northeast US however where people are very sue happy so its possible that message has been there all along to prevent it.
Well, I said no such thing, so I'm afraid I can't provide evidence of that.
I was wondering why you found my post lacking in evidence, and the answer is that you're apparently not understanding it. I don't know what else to do except ask that you read my posts again.
I'd just like to point out that most of the time my phone downloads things as fast or faster than they're portrayed in the commercial.
And as to the ban, that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen. You better start banning dish soap commercials because they definitely don't work as fast as they're portrayed. On the other hand, you could rely on people not to be moronic and to actually consider that people might not want to watch a 2 minute commercial of an application downloading. Unbelievable...
And as to the ban, that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen. You better start banning dish soap commercials because they definitely don't work as fast as they're portrayed. On the other hand, you could rely on people not to be moronic and to actually consider that people might not want to watch a 2 minute commercial of an application downloading. Unbelievable...
It's exactly what you said.
Ad for arbitrary - it depends what people complain about. The ASA investigate complaints - if someone complains and they find the advert to be in breach of the law, it will be banned. The laws on advertising are verbose, detailed and well known in the industry. Apple willingly broke them, and got called out on it. End of story.
I said that I thought they were arbritrary.
He is asking me to prove (with links) that their supporters think they're arbritary. Well, I can't prove that because I didn't say that they do. I said I think that.
EDIT:
(I based my opinion off of information given by their supporters. But I have no knowledge of their opinions. All I said is that I got information from them, and he wants links to their opinions. Well, how should I know what they think?)
If you insist on being pedantic, then this is the claim I was referring to (as if you didn't know).
It's exactly what you said.
Ad for arbitrary - it depends what people complain about. The ASA investigate complaints - if someone complains and they find the advert to be in breach of the law, it will be banned. The laws on advertising are verbose, detailed and well known in the industry. Apple willingly broke them, and got called out on it. End of story.
You completely don't understand the law. Nothing about the law is an "end of story." First of all, the law by nature isn't rigidly defined, and it's open to interpretation. As far as I can see Apple didn't willingly break any law because they explicitly stated network speed may vary. If this case were conducted in the United States or Canada you can bet it would be appealed and overturned on the grounds that it's completely ridiculous. More importantly, a decision like this (in the US or Canada) would set a legal precedence and probably about 80% of commercials would be banned.
This decision is as stupid as: "I bought a Ford and it couldn't fly like in the commercial. I want the commercial banned."
See my response to djellison.
It is clearly worded to say that I had an opinion and it was based on facts I gathered from their supporters.
I said nothing at all about their opinions, so why you think I know that is very confusing to me.
Good luck arguing with that; shockingly pedantic, to the point of childishness - I'm sure SWC knew what you were talking about!
SWC, by inference I'm guessing he'd then like you to provide links to back up your opinion. If you can't, because you based your opinions off the information provided by others, then you pretty much prove his point.
At least koh has given up on the thread; I was driven mad by his just not getting what everybody was telling him.
It's scary to think there are people out there like that!
Sounds like you don't know who thinks what, so why mention it in the first place. You were saying that the ASA is thought to be arbitrary and capricious by its supporters. Turns out you "invented" this, in much the same way that many ads are full of invention.