Ladbrokes has once again clashed with the Advertising Standards Authority after some messages on social media from the operator, which were likely to represent a strong appeal to under-18s.
In making its latest decision, the ASA noted that it forms part “of broader work banning advertisements for games that, under strengthened rules, are prohibited from being of broad appeal to those under 18.”
The four Tweets in question, seen during January and February 2023, were identified after information gathered by the group’s Active Ad Monitoring system, which uses AI to search for online ads that might break existing code.
Each of the four promoted Tweets included Novak Djokovic, with others also containing one, or a combination, of Rafael Nadal, Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas, while various images, text and relevant research served as a complement.
Ladbrokes Positioning
In response, Ladbrokes noted that tweets should be editorial content designed to engage their audience, with follow-up polls simply asking users to vote on tennis-related issues during the Australian Open.
“Ladbrokes acknowledged that the tweets referenced and included images of players, but reiterates that it has reviewed each player’s media profile, follower demographics and sponsorship partnerships to assess whether the players are likely to strongly appeal to the under-18s.” , wrote the ASA in its overall decision.
The operator provided data to indicate that gamers had “almost no” followers under the age of 21, with this, and partner brand partnerships, cited as a belief that each attracted an older audience, not those under 18 .
However, while acknowledging a possible lack of accuracy due to self-verification on the site, the data highlighted that impressions for all four ads ranged between 24,653 and 35,050.
“They believed it to be an anomaly and asked Twitter for clarification in this regard,” the ASA concluded.
Official statement from the ASA
In addition, the ASA also highlighted recent successes such as supporting a view of “strong appeal to under 18s”, as well as acknowledging, but dismissing, supporting data provided by Ladbrokes.
The advertising regulator wrote: “We consider that it would be acceptable for advertisements to appear in a medium where minors under 18, for all intents and purposes, could be entirely excluded from the audience.
This would apply in circumstances where those who saw the ads have been robustly verified to be 18 years of age or older, such as through marketing lists validated by payment details or a credit check.
We do not consider marketing data inferred from user behavior to meet this threshold. We recognize that the ads were targeted to those 25+, but as Twitter was a media environment where users self-verified upon customer sign-up, they did not use robust age verification.”
We considered that Ladbrokes had not excluded under-18s from the audience with the highest level of accuracy required for advertisements, the content of which is likely to strongly appeal to this age group.”
Therefore, the ASA warned that the advertisements should not be shown again in their current form, in addition to reminding Ladbrokes not to include people or characters that have strong appeal to under 18s in its advertising.
