The UK advertising regulatory body revealed that, according to the most recent data, it is gambling operators, along with junk food manufacturers, who air the most child-inappropriate adverts on online media.
Earlier today, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) issued its latest report focused on age-restricted advertising after using the findings from its online monitoring that has helped the watchdog identify and tackle age-restricted advertising appearing in children-focused platforms. The regulator paid special attention to how such age-restricted ads often remain unnoticed by watchdogs and finally find their way to domains that are typically aimed at attracting underage individuals or children constitute at least 25% of the website’s audience.
For the time being, the rules of the Advertising Code require advertisers placing age-restricted adverts online to make sure their ads do not target underage audiences.
Previously, the ASA has unveiled a long-term project, which initial phase included efforts to identify and tackle online adverts for gambling operators, e-cigarettes, tobacco and alcohol, along with junk foods and beverages, etc.
For three months, the watchdog used special monitoring tools to intercept a variety of ads available at more than 50 websites and YouTube channels that attract an extremely high child audience. The regulator revealed that over this time, it found several cases of ad rules violation because of which it warned the advertisers to review and improve their practices, or contacted them to directly require them to make sure problem ads are taken down from such online platforms.
Infographic credits: Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)
Four Gambling Companies Broke ASA’s Rules with 70 Betting Ads on 8 Websites
In its latest report, the Advertising Standards Authority revealed that a total of 159 age-restricted adverts violated the Advertising Code rules. Furthermore, the watchdog revealed that 35 advertisers uploaded age-restricted ads in 5 YouTube channels and 34 websites that attracted or primarily targetted underage audiences.
As revealed by the UK advertising regulatory body, junk food and beverage manufacturers were the largest violators of the code rules, with 78 different HFSS ads from 29 advertisers having been found on 24 website platforms and 5 YouTube channels. Gambling operators were second, with 70 different betting adverts issued by 4 gambling companies having been found on 8 websites. Ads promoting alcohol, e-cigarettes and tobacco products were also among the most common violators of the advertising code rules.
The gambling operators that were found to have breached the age-restriction rules of the Advertising Code were not identified by name. ASA’s report and the infographic published on the regulatory body’s website did not provide information on whether these companies had operating licences issued by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). The advertising watchdog revealed that each of the offending companies was addressed to make sure they take into account the warnings and remove the ads that breach the Code rules.
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Olivia Cole
