BT Gremlins and parental controls in front of ASA
Wednesday 16 July 2008 13:06:37 by Andrew Ferguson
A total of 21 people complained about a recent BT Total Broadband TV advert which followed the BT family soap opera and a teenage tantrum over what the daughter is allowed to do online. The complaints centered around two issues, that the advert appeared to condone letting children use the internet unsupervised, and that the implication was that the BT parental controls protected from all online threats.
None of the complaints were upheld, the ASA accepted that the advert actually showed the parents exercising control of their childs internet access. Regarding the parental controls the ASA in conjunction with Clearcast believed the overall impression from the advert was not that it offered total protection.
The second BT advert was for its BT 24/7 Business service that offers IT and communications support. This featured Gremlins causing havoc in an office to show that IT problems can occur at anytime. The eleven complaints challenged whether the scheduling restrictions were sufficient as their young children had been frightened by the Gremlins, resulting in nightmares for some.
These complaints again were not upheld, the advert had been deliberately scheduled to avoid shows specifically targeted at children and the advert content was such that the Gremlins did not harm the character in the advert. BT itself felt the advert was fairly tame in comparison to other content that children are exposed to. It seems that there has even been requests for Gremlin toys from children who have seen the advert.
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More like "Get a life" to those who complained about young children being frightened by the Gremlins and resulting in nightmares for some.
For god's sake don't let them watch Dr Who, Tellytubbies etc
"...young children had been frightened by the Gremlins, resulting in nightmares for some."
Not unlike BT's traffic shaping really....
quote""...young children had been frightened by the Gremlins, resulting in nightmares for some."
Not unlike BT's traffic shaping really...."
Mwahahaha only difference is they like it if you feed that habbit after midnight :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA1iQm413No
I've just watched the ad again and its a much better explanation than those Ellacoya machines we were led to believe does all the damage.
Just look at the way they start chewing the wires! That must be a bad boy using p2p!!! Not any more bwahahahaah...
Computer not responding? Oh that'll be good old Norton.
And that Gremlin hiding in the bin is a perfect demonstration of their Phorm trials.
To me BT are shooting themselves in the foot with the ad anyway as it basically says you need support coz our kit/lines are so bad.
The machine that starts to smoke is where someone has been clever and used VPN to get around the throttling, the poor machine and connection just couldnt handle the pace :D
yeah the complainers were been petty I suppose :)
quote"yeah the complainers were been petty I suppose :)"
Hey theres nothing petty about gremlins munching your LAn cable and then you having to phone a BT expert in India
I can see why some had nightmares ;)
I thought the ad was demonstrating BT's quality of response to user's broadband problems :D
quote"I thought the ad was demonstrating BT's quality of response to user's broadband problems :D"
Pictures BT engineer turning up at that company and attacked by Gremlins.... how satisfying ;)
No Chrysalis, the judgement was not upheld because there was nothing to uphold; haven't people got better things to do, Geezzz.
not upheld because a competitor didnt complain, the public are not important.