Cell C will ask the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to review its decision to find in favour of a complaint lodged by Vodacom against the former’s new advertising campaign.

Cell C was last week forced to pull the campaign, which poked fun at Vodacom’s rebranding to the red of its parent Vodafone. Vodacom objected to this and other aspects of the campaign, filing a complaint at the ASA.

Now Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt has reacted, saying he doesn’t regard Cell C’s ads as being “in any way, shape or form cheeky or confrontational”.

“In Europe, the US or Asia, this is very normal competitive behaviour,” he says of Cell C’s campaign. “We didn’t mean to be disparaging [of Vodacom’s brand], and I don’t think we were.”

Reichelt says Cell C will ask the ASA to review the supporting evidence it provided “one more time”.

“I find it a bit strange that technical facts are being ignored,” he says.

Cell C says the ASA found that its ads did not disparage Vodacom as a company. “Our intention was to highlight to SA consumers in a lighthearted way the benefits of Cell C’s fantastic new HSPA+ 900MHz network.”

The operator says it has an advantage over rivals by having built its network at 900MHz. The technology provides greater coverage around base stations and the signal at this frequency penetrates buildings and other obstructions more easily.

Vodacom has now asked the ASA to impose sanctions on Cell C. These sanctions, if applied, could include a rule that would require Cell C to run all its advertising campaigns past the ASA directorate before being flighted.

But Reichelt believes Vodacom is being disingenuous. He says there have been eight adverse rulings against Vodacom at the ASA in the past 12 months.

“I’ve always said we will bring competition to the market,” he says. “We run by our own agenda. I’ve always said it’s going to be very exciting.” — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral