Consumers from São Paulo and Bahia, in Brazil, made complaints to CONAR (the Brazilian National Council for Advertising Self-regulation) against a TV ad for Globoplay App, promoting the new streaming service created by Grupo Globo, one of the world’s biggest broadcasting companies.
The consumers accused the advertisement of being misleading as it uses expressions such as “É gratis” (“It's free”) and “Experimente gratis” (“Try it for free”), which led the consumers to believe that they would be able to stream the app’s movies and TV shows for free when actually only dowloading the app is free and the consumers must pay for watching the available shows.
The advertiser affirmed in its defense that the advertisement does not presume that all TV shows and movies are available for free on the app, although there is a free content within the app, including the live signal from TV Globo. The defense also states that it had changed the ad to clarify to consumers that the app has restricted content to subscribers.
CONAR agreed with the consumers and has warned Globo "in order to establish clarity in the still new universe of the internet".
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