Samsung’s LED TV ads ruled as misleading by ASA

The UK’s Advertising Standard Agency (ASA) has judged Samsung’s LED television and magazine advertisements as misguiding and that Samsung must stop calling its latest range of TVs as LED TVs in advertisements.

The ruling by ASA comes from fact Samsung’s LED TVs do not use LED as the fundamental display technology, but still uses LCD as the technology for the display. The difference between a typical LCD TV and the LED TV is that LCD TVs have a backlight powered by Cold Cathode Lamp (CCL) while the LED TV range uses Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) to power the backlight.

Using LED to power the backlight allows the TV to produce deeper colour and better quality picture, and therefore, Samsung has classified it as a new product range. Samsung has led the way in LED backlit TVs and has sought to separate it from the conventional LCD TV by creating a strong brand for its new range of TVs.

This however, has fallen foul in the eyes of UK’s ASA who have termed it as misguiding and have issued a ruling that prevents Samsung from using advertisements that call their range of TVs as LED TV. ASA felt "the advertisement implied the TV displays were comprised totally of LEDs similar to some outdoor displays when that was not the case."

ASA has issued the following ruling: "The ASA understood that the Samsung TV had an LCD display with a LED edge-lighting and that it did not have a full LED display. Furthermore, we understood that full LED screens were currently only available in certain mediums, such as large outdoor screen displays; whilst full LED TVs for household use were in development, they were not yet available in the UK market."

Samsung has argued that the term LED TV indicates the type of technology that the TV uses in a general way to the consumer rather than indicating that the TV was comprised of LEDs.

In response to the ASA ruling Samsung was quoted to have said: "Samsung welcomes the clarification the ASA decision gives in relation to our LED TV advertisements. We are pleased that we can continue to use the term LED TV as we believe it will continue to be the commonly used industry term. We appreciate that more clarification is required in relation to the LED usage within the product and will ensure this is clearly outlined in future communication."

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