“Someone switches back to British Gas every 60 seconds.” Impressive?

By Alexandra-Channer(Editoring chief):

British gas, one of the most commercial and economically successful gas brands in the UK. Well, that is what they say. According to their advertisements ,British gas claims that “someone switches back to British gas every 60 seconds.”
The Centrica owned company was actually losing a large number of customers every day and following two complaints and investigation, the Advertising Standards Authority has told the company it can no longer use the ad unless there is "sufficient substantiation to back up the claims.”
Now they seem to have taken to new tactics. They have decided to go on a marketing offensive to win back their former customers by phoning them at home and ‘harassing’them with promises of fixed rates until 2009.
Some of the complaints that were taken against the claim were by a rivalry Scottish supplier, ‘Scottish Power’. A member of the public also complained after he calculated that they suggested 526,000 customers returned to them every day.
The company have now acknowledged that the figures included new customers and have promised to amend the advert.