Advertisment
The advertisement opens with a young man and a woman running towards a van, the man is carrying a small rucksack in his hand while the woman’s is wearing hers on her shoulder. The van door opens and more people appear on the scene. Two women jump up and down holding tickets.
The next scene cuts to a person’s feet, the person appears to be lying in the grass. A group of friends take a selfie, tents appear in the background and one man stands outside his tent.
The next scene features four young people travelling in an open top car. One girl in the backseat is holding her mobile phone with Spotify open on the screen, she swishes her hair from side to side as if dancing to the music. All four featured appear to be in a jovial mood.
The next scene takes place in a comedy club with a group of young men sitting around a table watching a comedian perform. The onscreen text reads:
“See Vodafone.ie for full terms 18+”
The next scene features a woman talking on her phone, she is standing by a tree covered with lights. Her friend sees her and runs over to give her a hug.
The last scene features an on-stage concert, fans of the performer move to the music. One young couple moving slowly to the music stare intently at each other. A male voiceover delivers the following message:
“Join Vodafone Centre Stage at this year’s biggest music and comedy festivals and surround yourself with exclusive performances, your favourite artists and loads of chances to win free tickets. Search Vodafone Centre Stage.”
The onscreen text at the end reads:
“Surround yourself with Ireland’s biggest festivals. Search Vodafone Centre Stage.”
Complaint
The complainants Three Ireland (Hutchison) Limited (Three) were of the view that Vodafone’s invitation to “Join Vodafone Centre Stage at this year’s biggest music and comedy festivals” was inaccurate and misleading. They considered that Vodafone were exaggerating the size of their music festivals that were part of their Centre Stage programme of events. Three said that the music festivals which Three sponsored were bigger than those supported by Vodafone. They said Electric Picnic, one of the biggest music festivals in Ireland and Longitude which was voted the best medium size music festival in Ireland (both sponsored by Three), were bigger than the festivals supported by Vodafone.
They provided a link to a search conducted through Google to substantiate this claim.
Three provided statistics for audience figures for music festivals for 2016 which they said indicated that numbers attending Electric Picnic alone were greater than those for all Vodafone’s line up combined.
2016 Vodafone:
Live at the Marquee
Events/ Days
Venue/Daily Capacity
Total
Seated shows (Lord of the Dance)
Events/ Days – 4
Venue/Daily Capacity – 3500 / 14000
Total
Standing shows
Events/ Days – 18
Venue/Daily Capacity – 5000 / 90000
Total – 104000
Body&Soul
Events/ Days – 3
Venue/Daily Capacity – 10000
Total – 30000
Castlepalooza
Events/Days – 3
Venue/Daily Capacity – 3500
Total – 10500
TOTAL:
Venue/Daily Capacity – 22000
Total – 144500
2016 Three:
Longitude
Events/Days – 3
Venue/Daily Capacity – 30000
Total – 90000
Punchestown
Events/Days – 1
Venue/Daily Capacity – 30000
Total – 90000
Electric Picnic
Events/Days – 3
Venue/Daily Capacity – 55000
Total – 165000
TOTAL:
Venue/Daily Capacity – 105000
Total – 275000
Response
The advertisers said that their advertising had clearly referred to both music and comedy festivals. They considered that Three had been selective in discounting Vodafone’s comedy festivals when making their complaint by focusing entirely on music festivals alone.
The advertisers said they rejected Three’s assertion that their advertisement breached the ASAI Code. They said their advertisement had stated that “you can join Vodafone Centre Stage at this years biggest music and comedy festivals” and they stood by that claim. They said they were not not claiming to be involved with Ireland’s biggest music festival (singular). They advised that what they were communicating to their customers was that they were involved as a sponsor with a suite of what they considered to be arguably Ireland’s biggest music and comedy festivals. They said Vodafone sponsored Centre Stage at Live at the Marquee Cork, Body & Soul, Castlepalooza, the Vodafone Comedy Festival and the Galway Comedy Carnival throughout 2016.
The advertisers said they rejected Three’s interpretation of the use of the phrase ‘biggest’ in their advertisement as a reference to pure attendance numbers. The word ‘biggest’ was deliberately used in the advertisement in the wider sense and was not meant to be interpretated in such a limited or narrow context. They said their advertisement had made no mention of festival capacity and this was a flawed construal by Three, which they would argue failed to take into account the reputations of the various music and comedy festivals that Vodafone Centre Stage would be found at this year, the size of the various acts involved at each festival and also the duration of the events.
The advertisers said that the Body and Soul festival arguably enjoyed the reputation of Ireland’s most unique festival ; while Live at the Marquee Cork was Ireland’s longest (in duration) music festival, running for approximately six weeks in total each summer and attracted the largest headline acts of any music festival in Ireland.
The advertisers queried the figures supplied by Three in relation to the expected attendance at Electric Picnic this year and the fact that they had said the attendance at this event would be greater than combined audiences for Vodafone’s sponsored events. They said it had to be taken into account that this event had yet to take place and as previous sponsors of the event they queried the statistics provided. They said that some of the tickets sold for Electric Picnic were three day weekend tickets and yet Three had not taken this into account when providing overall attendance figures for the event. They said for any comparative estimated audience attendance figures to work they should be done on a like for like basis and this was not the case with the figures provided by Three. The advertisers provided statistics for what they considered to be a fair comparative basis for attendance at their sponsored events.
Vodafone provided the following table for comparative purposes:
Total ticket sale capacity per day:
LIVE AT THE MARQUEE – 104000
BODY & SOUL – 14000
CASTLEPALOOZA – 10000
VODAFONE COMEDY FESTIVAL – 20000
VODAFONE COMEDY CARNIVAL – 13500
total – 161500
LONGITUDE – 25000
PUNCHESTOWN – 20000
ELECTRIC PICNIC – 55000
total – 100000
Conclusion
Complaint upheld.
The Complaints Committee considered the details of the complaint and the advertisers’ response. They also reviewed the statistics in relation to attendance provided by both parties. The Complaints Committee noted that the claim was “Join Vodafone Centre Stage at this year’s biggest music and comedy festivals…” They considered that this implied that the festivals they were involved with were bigger than other festivals. As this had not been demonstrated, the Committee considered the claim to be in in breach of Sections 4.1 and 4.9 of the Code.
The advertising should not be used in the same format again.
