ASA strikes Ladbrokes ad for using famous personalities imagery

The Advertising Standards Authority or ASA, has issued a new ruling in the case of Ladbrokes which has been ordered to take down a Twitter ad. According to the watchdog, Ladbrokes has violated the Committee on Advertising Practices (CAP) rules which prohibit gambling companies to use the imagery and likeness of personalities that may appeal to age groups of under 18s.

The particular ad contained the imagery of Philippe Coutinho, Kalidou Koulibaly, and Jesse Lingard some of whom are said to have a strong appeal to this particular age group. The ad pictured the aforementioned players and had a caption that read: "Can these big summer signings make the question marks over their performances go away?"

ASA challenged the ad and said that the people displayed in it could have a strong appeal to vulnerable groups and were therefore in breach of the CAP code. Ladbrokes took the matter seriously and explained the ad and why the company had decided to run with it.

The company said that it acknowledged that, as a platform, Twitter lets users self-verify their age, but Ladbrokes had accounted for that by using additional tools to ensure that no person under the age of 18 has been targeted. As a matter of fact, the company was able to successfully tailor and target its ad to age groups above 25 years old.

Ladbrokes then presented detailed statistics proving that out of the 50,666 impressions the ad had, 0% was targeted at anyone under the age of 20. In other words, Ladbrokes had delivered on its promise to safeguard vulnerable individuals. ASA, though, has not accepted this argument and ordered the company to take down the ad and not reuse it in its present form.

The regulator said that football was a particularly sensitive topic as it held a strong appeal with vulnerable age groups, had a very high media profile, and could lead to potential breaches in the future. All three players in the ad were also prominent names in the Premier League, one of the best-publicized football events worldwide and in the United Kingdom.

Because of this, ASA warned that all three players may be easily recognized by the age groups of under 18s, making the ad in itself a risk. Despite Ladbrokes best efforts, which proved a success, ASA ruled in the end that the risk of potentially impacting younger audiences could not be ruled out entirely.

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