ASA Bans Ladbrokes Twitter Ad

The Advertising Standards Authority has reprimanded sports betting giant Ladbrokes over one of its ads. The watchdog told Ladbrokes that the promoted tweet could not appear again in its current form, and that it was not to include individuals that have a strong appeal to those under eighteen. The operator defended its in-house content, stating that it had used age-gating tools.

The ASA rejected Ladbrokes’ claim that it had adequately age-gated the Twitter ad. ?Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

Twitter Marketing

The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint made against a promoted tweet for Ladbrokes. The ad for the sports betting operator was visible on the social media platform in October 2022. Concerns were raised over whether individuals pictured in the ad could have strong appeal to viewers under the age of eighteen.

The tweet featured the text “Can these big summer signings make the question marks over their performances go away?” alongside an embedded video showing images of Premier League footballers. Philippe Coutinho, Jesse Lingard and Kalidou Koulibaly were pictured against a backdrop of question marks, with the word “Ladbrokes” also in the image box.

Ladbrokes responded to the ASA’s challenge, defending the ad. The Entain-owned sports betting brand stated that the tweet had been designed in-house and published as an engagement piece with the brand’s following. According to Ladbrokes, no calls to action, promotional offers or links to its website were used.

Ladbrokes also said that its marketing team had been careful to incorporate CAP’s guidance on gambling ads having a strong appeal to under-eighteens in their practices. The brand did acknowledge that the footballers depicted were likely to have a strong appeal to children, but added that it had made use of all available targeting and age-gating tools to remove under-eighteens from the ad’s audience.

Ladbrokes’ Twitter feed cannot be accessed by users unless Twitter has accepted that they are over the age of eighteen. However, as Twitter users self-verify their age this is not always accurate. With this in mind, Ladbrokes targeted the ad on social media so that it would only reach people over the age of 25.

The bookmaker provided data from Twitter illustrating that the ad had been boosted to only reach account holders aged over 25. According to that data, the ad made a total of 50,666 impressions. 0% of its targeted audience was under twenty years old.

Insufficient Age-Gating

Despite Ladbrokes’ assurances, the ASA upheld its ruling. Since October, the CAP Code has stated that marketing communications for gambling products must not be likely to strongly appeal to children or young people. People or characters that appeal to under-eighteens must not be included. As part of that rule, Premier League footballers are regarded as high risk within CAP guidance.

A significant proportion of young people engage with football on a frequent basis and show interest in following teams and players across a variety of media. Professional sport has an exceptionally high media profile that includes popular dedicated media aimed at under-eighteens.

The ASA deemed that those playing at an elite level are likely to appeal strongly to children. Philippe Coutinho, Jesse Lingard and Kalidou Koulibaly, all shown in the ad, are currently Premier League footballers. As such, they are well known to young people that follow Premier League football, in particular fans of the clubs they play for.

The advertising watchdog stated that it would have been acceptable for the ad to appear in a medium where under-eighteens could be completely excluded from its audience. In that case, the ad would have had to have been robustly age-verified through marketing lists validated through payment data or credit-checking.

The marketing data on user behavior supplied by Ladbrokes did not meet that threshold. As Twitter does not use robust age-verification, the ASA ruled that Ladbrokes had not been able to exclude under-eighteens from viewing the ad with a high enough level of accuracy.

In its statement, the ASA said that the ad was irresponsible and had breached the Code. Ladbrokes was told that the ad must not appear again in its current form and that it must not include individuals that strongly appeal to under-eighteens. The ASA has previously banned Ladbrokes ads in July 2021 and February 2021.

Safeguarding Young People

The advertising watchdog introduced tougher content restrictions for gambling and lottery advertising in October. Enhanced protections for under-eighteens were introduced as part of the Committee of Advertising Practice’s commitment to safeguard young people from gambling harms.

Operators are required to ensure that their campaigns must not have particular appeal to children. While that rule was already in place, new guidance has made marketing rules far stricter. The rules are based on a ‘strong appeal’ test, prohibiting imagery, themes and characters that significantly appeal to under-eighteens from being used.

The enhanced protections constitute a significant restriction on the types of imagery and references available to gambling marketers. Freely accessible ads must not depict topflight footballers and footballers with a considerable following amongst under-eighteens on social media. That rules out World Cup stars and Premier League players.

References to all sportspeople well-known to minors, including those with significant social media following from under-eighteens, are prohibited. Marketers must also not refer to video game content and gameplay popular with children. Reality TV stars popular with under-eighteens, such as Love Island contestants, must also not appear.

The updated guidance follows the outcome of CAP’s consultation on the proposals in April. The consultation responded to research carried out by charity GambleAware which investigated in detail the impact of gambling ads in the UK. It found that regulatory changes could continue to protect under-eighteens from gambling-related advertising harms.

Announcing the new rules, CAP issued thorough guidance to help gambling operators and marketers adhere to the strong appeal standard. Those responsible for producing gambling ads were also reminded to consult existing advice on interpreting the Code’s other rules for under-eighteens.

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