The President of the Office for Competition and Consumer Protection initiated the subject proceedings following a complaint that it received from the Ministry of Administration and Digitization. The contested advertisement campaign was carried out through different means and was aimed to reach a significant group of consumer willing to purchase TV sets.
The President found out that an average consumer who was able to differentiate between the campaign carried out by the Ministry and the defendant’s campaign may have got an impression that the products offered by the defendant are particularly attractive in the context of the ongoing process of introduction of digital television.
Moreover, the President noted that the social campaign led by the Ministry was mainly addressed to people to whom the introduction of the digital television system could be most troublesome (i.e. the elderly, inhabitants of villages and small cities and the uneducated). These groups of people could be at the same time mainly harmed by the advertisement campaign led by the defendant as they are characterized with a significant level of trust and trustworthiness.
Additionally, the defendant violated good commercial practices by using features characteristic for the social campaign which might have created an impression to the consumers that the products offered by the defendant are to some extent interrelated to the digitization of television services in Poland and thus, are recommended by the governmental entities responsible for the process.
Due to all of the reasons stated above, the President found that the advertisement means used by the defendant could distort the consumers' behaviour.
URL: http://decyzje.uokik.gov.pl/dec_prez.nsf/0/60602EF7F6BC8761C1257B6C004260F2?OpenDocument
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