Vodafone Siri ad 'did not mislead consumers'

A complaint was made over a website advert in October 2011 for Apple's voice-activated software. The complainant argued the ad was misleading because it did not make clear that specific maps-based functions were only available in the United States.
Vodafone said the content of the advertisement that was complained about had been supplied by Apple. In its response, Apple argued the two Siri functions featured in the ad, one that provided a weather forecast and the other that showed reminders, worked in the UK and used location information. The manufacturer said Siri was not integrated with the maps application in the UK and therefore did not use any maps-related imagery in the advert.
The Advertising Standards Authority chose not to uphold the complaint. It said: 'We considered that some consumers may have had prior knowledge of what Siri was reportedly able to do in the US and, with this knowledge, might read into the ad that Siri users in the UK would benefit from similar maps-based functionality. However we did not consider that these consumers represented the average consumer in the UK and, because the ad in itself had not explicitly or implicitly made such claims, we concluded that the ad was not misleading.'