The UK Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint from Sybase Inc in the UK about Oracle Corp’s ‘Gentlemen, Start your Snails’ advert. The ad, which has already run in US publications without incident, was considered ‘misleading’ by the authority. It does not possess punitative powers, but relies on a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ among advertisers to abide by its decisions. Sybase considered the advertisement misleading insofar as it was selective about the test results on its SQL server, mislabelled the test results, offered Workgroup Server for NT for sale when it was not the same product as that featured in the test results and omitted results in which Sybase was the winner. Oracle UK has attempted to maintain a very British stiff upper lip by denying the advertisement is effectively banned, suggesting it just needs tweaking.
