A BT ad campaign fronted by Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds has been banned following a complaint from rival Virgin Media.

The big budget campaign, which featured Reynolds parodying his fast-paced Hollywood lifestyle, ran across TV, national press and online.

The campaign promoted its “up to” 52Mb Infinity fibre service as the “fastest speeds vs standard entry-level fibre products of major broadband providers”, with one ad including a comparison with Sky that used speedometer graphics.

Virgin Media lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority arguing that the ad misleadingly implied BT’s 52Mb Infinity service was the fastest maximum speed service for a lowest-priced package available in the UK.

“We noted that the major broadband providers against whom BT had compared their service, all advertised a slower maximum speed for their cheapest option,” said the ASA. “However, we understood that there were other providers on the market whose cheapest (or only) service options advertised faster maximum speeds than 52 Mbps, in some cases significantly so.”

The ASA concluded that the ads were misleading and had breached the UK advertising code.