Ads
for Jamster's ringtones – featuring the characters Crazy Frog,
Sweetie the Chick and Nessie the Dragon – helped to sell 11 million
ringtones, but also provoked 298 complaints to the Advertising
Standards Authority.
Jamster is a trading name of Jamba! GmbH, a German
company owned by US internet giant VeriSign, best known as the
registry for all .com and .net domain names. VeriSign bought Jamba!
last year for £152 million.
Eighty complainants thought they had bought the ringtone for £3,
only to find that they had unwittingly signed up for a subscription
service costing £3 per week. But another 244 complaints came
from viewers who thought that the ads were targeting children, 33
of whom reported that their children had downloaded the ringtone
and then received large phone bills.
Jamster denied that the ads were designed to target children,
putting forward evidence that its customer base was largely adult.
It also said that the offending ads were no longer being broadcast
but that it thought its ads had made it clear that a subscription
service was involved.
Jamster pointed out that once a customer had subscribed to the
service, an SMS
message was sent to the subscriber giving full details of costs and
instructions about cancellation.
The ASA was not convinced, concluding that the ads did not make
it clear that a continuing payment commitment was involved.
While it appreciated that details of the service were sent after
subscription, it felt “the ads encouraged customers to subscribe
and therefore should have made the nature of the service clear so
customers were informed before subscribing”.
Nor did the ASA agree that the ads did not target children.
According to the ruling:
“Although mobile phones are not toys, the
fact that games can be played on them, photos taken, or music
downloaded makes them appealing to children, other than for just
making calls. We appreciated that it would be impossible for
parents to control fully how their children use their mobile
phones. However, ads must not take advantage of children's
inexperience or their credulity and, on the basis of the complaints
we received, we considered that these ads had.
“The fact that a number of complainants
reported that children had run up large phone bills showed that
children had been influenced. We considered that although the ads
might not have been aimed at children, they were none the less of
strong appeal to them and the product was clearly of interest to
them. We therefore considered that a timing restriction placing the
ads post 9 pm should be applied. “
Jamster is appealing the ASA ruling and had sought a High Court
injunction to prevent the watchdog from publishing its adjudication
until that appeal has been heard. However, earlier this week the
judge, Mr Justice Lloyd-Jones, agreed that it was in the public
interest to publish the adjudication now.
“This ruling sends a warning to the whole industry that ads for
ringtones and other mobile phone subscription services must not
appeal to under-16s,” said ASA Director General, Christopher
Graham. “It also reminds the advertising business as a whole that
the ASA carries out certain public law functions – and that it will
be supported by the Courts.’
Phone downloads are lucrative. According to figures published
yesterday by the Mintel Group, Britons will spend £740 million on
phone downloads in 2005, 18 times more than the £40 million spent
in 2002.
The analyst reports that ringtones currently account for the
largest share of downloads, with 33% of volume sales, followed by
games, which account for 26% of the market. The remainder is
made up of wallpapers/screensaves (13%), gambling (9%), music (8%)
and others (11%), which includes news updates from football clubs,
the Stock Exchange and other special groups.
