Unibet sanctioned by ASA for unlabelled marketing tweet

Unibet has been sanctioned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for a tweet from the operator’s brand ambassador and horse trainer Nicky Henderson that was not clearly marked as marketing material.

The October tweet, which read: “We’re underway with the jumps and my exclusive @unibet blog is now ready to read”, should have been clearly marked as sponsored marketing according to the ASA.

Kindred Group’s sportsbook Unibet claimed the tweet did not breach CAP code as it did not consider the tweet to be a marketing communication.

The firm argued it did not require him to tweet on the firm’s behalf and that it did not have any editorial control over the Twitter account.

But Unibet’s case was undermined in the details of its contract with Henderson, which included a term that Henderson must allow Unibet to manage, with his assistance, his social media activity throughout the term of the agreement.

The contract stated that Henderson was required to start a Twitter account that would be managed by Unibet on his behalf, though he would have the right to approve all tweets sent on that account.

In response, Unibet said the contract terms were generic and did not “reflect the reality” of the ambassadorial deal with Henderson as his Twitter account was created before their partnership.

The ASA ruled that the ad was not obviously identifiable as a marketing communication and that it must not appear again in its current form.

The regulator told Unibet and Henderson to ensure that future marketing communications were obviously identifiable through the use of hashtags like “#ad”, for example.