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
