ASA raps Carphone Warehouse over research claims

The ad for mobile phones for children was run in conjunction with mobile network Bemilo and made claims such as “33% [of children] spend up to five hours a day browsing the web on their phone” and “One in ten receive bullying texts or calls”.

ASA received a complaint questioning whether the claims made in the advert could be substantiated.

Carphone Warehouse and Bemilo submitted a joint response to the ASA, explaining that the survey results had been collected by an unnamed polling firm which had carried out a survey of 2,000 parents of children aged between 4 and 16.

However, the ASA ruled that “it was misleading not to state that the claim was based on a survey of parents’ views when making such an absolute claim about something difficult to objectively verify”.