Ladbrokes slapped with ASA censure over Premier League tweet
Advertising watchdog takes Entain-owned company to task over in-house-designed social media ad
Ladbrokes has found itself in the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) crosshairs after the advertising watchdog censured the operator over a Premier League-themed post on Twitter.
The promoted tweet, first published in October 2022, showed an embedded video of an image reel featuring Premier League footballers Philippe Coutinho, Jesse Lingard and Kalidou Koulibaly.
It displayed the text “Can these big summer signings make the question marks over their performances go away?”, set against a background of question marks, with Ladbrokes branding within the image reel itself.
Reviewing the social media post, ASA invigilators suggested the footballers used might have “strong appeal” to those under the age of 18, something which breached existing CAP codes and challenged Ladbrokes to explain its post.
Responding to the query, the operator defended its in-house-designed content, insisting it was published as a brand engagement piece, and contained no calls to action, promotional offers or backlinks to the Ladbrokes site.
Acknowledging the need to conform to ASA CAP codes, Ladbrokes suggested it had taken all necessary steps to bar access to the tweet by those aged under 18, using targeting and age-gating tools to stop content being viewed.
The operator provided data from Twitter that showed the ad had been boosted to only reach users who were aged 25 years and over. Data provided a total of 50,666 impressions, and that 0% of their targeted audience was under 20 years old.
“We noted the ad included Philippe Coutinho, Jesse Lingard and Kalidou Koulibaly, who were all current Premier League footballers and would be well known to those who followed Premier League football, and in particular fans of the clubs they played for, including children,” the ASA said in its complaint response.
“In addition, they had all played international football, and we considered, based on those factors, that all three footballers were likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s,” the watchdog added.
Considering the data provided, ASA acknowledged the acceptability of the advert to appear on an age-gated Twitter feed but asserted that marketing data from user behaviour was not enough to meet the threshold required when reviewing actions taken to bar access by underage individuals.
In addition, ASA questioned whether Twitter’s age verification procedures were robust enough an exclusion when it came to the advert itself.
Utilising all these factors, ASA ruled the advertisement should not appear again in its current form.