A Facebook ad promoting GVC’s Gala Spins has drawn massive criticism and a stern warning from the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority. The promotional ad, which first appeared as a paid-for advertisement on the social media platform in August this year, featured the images of the five toy characters starring in Gala Spins’ Fluffy Favourites online pokies game.
The ad featured the caption, “It’s a Rollercoaster of Cuteness”, and “What’s your spin?” alongside gameplay clips from the pokie. According to the ruling handed down by the ASA, the text and images are likely to appeal to children as well as age-appropriate players. We reported last year that gambling ads in New Zealand are now also facing greater scrutiny.
GVC has since removed the offending advert from the social media platform.
Old news
Gala Spins responded to the ruling, saying in its defence that the video was erroneously posted and was out of date at the time of posting. The brand advised that the error possibly occurred because the ad was a component of a wider campaign targeted at female online gamers in the 18 – 65 age categories.
GVC was able to offer up evidence confirming that nobody under the age of 18 had viewed the content of the ad which was only intended to be viewed by adult audiences.
GVC cautioned
The ASA countered the response to its ruling, stating that aside from the content being shown to an audience that has to self-report their age, there were no other precautions in place to ensure the ad fell within the applicable age-specific requirements published early in 2019 by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP).
The ASA further explained that the type of content in the Fluffy Favourites section of the campaign is exemplary of content typically employed to appeal to under-age persons and children. This motivated the ASA’s assertion that GVC and Gala Spins had acted in a socially irresponsible manner as per the provisions outlined in Section 16.1 of the CAP code of good advertising practice.
The ASA’s final decision was to not issue any kind of fine or severe penalty but issued Gala Spins with a warning to not post future ads for pokies that include content that will likely appeal to under-age persons.
