Thursday, September 27, 2012

BREAKING. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rules M-Net is not guilty of deceitful advertising over the prize for MasterChef South Africa.


The Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) has ruled that M-Net's wasn't deceitful in the pay-TV channel's advertising and marketing of the controversial prize for the winner of the the first season of MasterChef South Africa which heavily hyped that the winner would receive "over R8 million worth of prizes" and "his or her own restaurant".

After receiving a complaint following public uproar when it became clear that the MasterChef South Africa winner Deena Naidoo won't be actually "getting" his own restaurant but only the use of it for a period of time, the ASA said that M-Net's likely viewers would be able to appreciate that "one does not actually 'own' any part of a complex like Montecasino ... but rents floor space from the building owners".

The ASA directorate dismissed the complaints and said that "a hypothetical, reasonable person would not expect the winner to own the physical structure in the sense that the building which houses the restaurant would be theirs too".