By Paul Gray – Director, European TV Research, DisplaySearch
As we have discussed, Samsung’s claim to LED TV has been somewhat adventurous. In the UK, promotional content like this has been raising eyebrows:
Figure 1: Samsung LED TV Ad
Now the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has judged that the claim breaches UK advertising law. Advertising in the UK has to be “Legal, Decent, Honest and Truthful” and the ASA decided that, as the display was not comprised totally of LEDs, they were misleading, which the ASA defines as follows:
- Advertising is likely to be considered misleading if, for example, it contains a false statement, description, illustration or claim about a material fact or characteristic. Material characteristics include price, availability and performance. Any ambiguity which might give a misleading impression must be avoided.
- Even if everything stated is literally true, an advertisement may still mislead if it conceals significant facts or creates a false impression of relevant aspects of the product or service.
Samsung will have to rewrite its UK advertisements and revise its LED TV campaign.
I imagine that setmakers claiming 200 Hz for solutions with scanning backlights will also be reviewing their advertising copy.
