Virgin Media Ltd (UK) has just has just had an adjucation against them upheld by the ASA(Advertising Standards Authority) for breach of the CAP (Committee of Advertising Practice) code in relation to an email marketing campaign. It seems that Virgin Media have some trouble understanding “NO” actually means “NO” and the Advertising Standards Authority have had to rap them over the knuckles for their lack of respect for their subscribers privacy.
This was after they sent promotional messages to their subscriber base, ignoring the fact that the recipients of the message had all specifically requested not to recieve such email communications. The promotional e-mail, for Virgin Media, had the subject heading “An important message from Virgin Media”. It was headlined “What great stuff could you be missing out on?”.
Virgin decided they were not happy that their database had all these contact email address’ of people who did not want to get email from them. So they thought they would have another stab at it and contact them all telling them what an unwise decision it was to opt-out and ask them to opt-in. They did this by email of course!
The issue was raised with the ASA (advertising Standards Authority) by a disgruntled recipient who made a complaint that was upheld. Virgin tried to argue that the message was not promotional even though the headline was “What great stuff could you be missing out on?” and the incentive “As a thank you, you’ll be entered into our prize draw to win a free HTC HD2* phone”, that argument did not hold much water.
I wonder how many of those recipients did not actualy bother to make a complaint to the ASA but instead just clicked “Report Spam”. I bet they suffered some in the email deliverability department after that particular campaign. In another case against them today they had a further 4 adjucations upheld against them for 2 print media and 1 TV campaign. So a bad day for the marketing department at Virgin Meida all round!
The text of the email in full
“We’ve noticed you’re not currently registered to receive information from us and we just wanted to let you know that now that Virgin Mobile is part of the big Virgin Media family, you can get your hands on even more exclusive deals. All you need to do is tell us you want to hear about them! … As a Virgin Media customer, you’ve got the chance to bag some brilliant perks, as well as extra useful stuff to help you keep on top of your services. So that you get the best value from us, we’ll keep you up to date with exclusive offers as well as making sure you’re up to speed with the latest product news. Plus, we’ll tell you about our reward schemes and give you first dibs on V Festival tickets! And there’s lots of other cool stuff too … To hear about offers, news and the latest from Virgin Media simply register to hear from us. And don’t worry we won’t give your details to anyone else. As a thank you, you’ll be entered into our prize draw to win a free HTC HD2* phone … If you’re happy as you are and don’t want to hear from us, you don’t need to do anything, we won’t change anything unless you tell us to … ”.
Virgin Response
Virgin said the e-mail was sent to announce that Virgin Mobile had become part of the Virgin Media group, because customers might want to opt in to receiving marketing communications once they heard that news. They said the e-mail was not a marketing communication and contained none of the calls to action that were characteristic of such. They needed to make the announcement to customers who may not have been aware of press announcements and would not have been notified via marketing communications; Virgin said they were entitled, under the Data Protection Act, to contact customers in infrequent situations where there had been business developments to ensure their data remained up-to-date and accurate.
ASA Assesment
Upheld
The ASA noted Virgins argument that the e-mail was not a marketing communication but was an update to customers who might otherwise not have been aware of the change that had taken place. Because, however, it did not include only information about the change but included prize incentives and text such as “What great stuff could you be missing out on?”, ” … you can get your hands on even more exclusive deals” and “As a thank you, youll be entered into our prize draw to win a free HTC HD2* phone … “, we considered the e-mail was a marketing communication. We noted Virgin did not have the complainants consent to send him marketing communications by e-mail. We therefore concluded that Virgins database practice breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code clauses 43.9 and 43.13c (Database practice).
Action Taken
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Virgin to ensure they did not send marketing communications by e-mail to consumers who had asked not to receive them.
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