A Sky Bet ad featuring Gary Neville has placed the effectiveness of the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) new guidance under the microscope.
The ASA has upheld its challenge that a promoted post on X by Sky Bet featuring an embedded video clip from the Overlap football podcast was likely to be of strong appeal to those under 18 years of age because of the presence of Neville. The decision was made in spite of Neville having retired from the game in 2011.
As a result, the ASA found that Bonne Terre Ltd, which trades as Sky Bet, had breached the advertising rules which all UK-licensed operators must follow.
Weighing up the risks
In reaching its decision, the ASA used new guidance released by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP), which considers that an influencer followed by over 100,000 social media accounts registered to people under-18 is “indicative of strong appeal”.
According to the ASA, when the ad was posted in February 2023, 5% of Neville’s 1.6 million Instagram followers were registered as under 18, which amounts to 80,000. Additionally, 1% of his 5.5 million X followers were registered as under 18, bringing his under-18 following on the two platforms to approximately 135,000.
The ASA could not garner the same data for under-18 followers on TikTok and Facebook, but noted that the former Manchester United right back had 963,400 and 42,395 followers on the platforms, respectively.
Although the new guidance has set the follower threshold at 100,000, it also clarifies that the ASA can deem a personality to be of strong appeal if they fall under that figure, or not of strong appeal even if they have more than 100,000 under-18 followers.
Given this case-by-case basis approach to regulating marketing, Sky Bet argued that Neville did not hold strong appeal to under-18s.
In the clip posted on X, Neville is seen participating in a fan debate on the Overlap podcast discussing which team would win the Premier League in that year. During the clip, Sky Bet’s logo appeared intermittently and at the end stated “brought to you by Sky Bet”, and the BeGambleAware logo appeared.
According to the ruling, Sky Bet stated that 1.2% of the Overlap’s audience was aged 13-17 years, and that figure dropped to 0.5% for the advertised episode.
The operator also noted that Neville ended his playing career in 2011 and fell into the category of “long retired”, which on its own would place the eight-time Premier League winner as low-risk of appealing to under-18s according to the CAP code.
Alongside the Overlap, Neville also works as a TV pundit on Premier League broadcasts and for England’s international matches. The ASA stated that, in this context only, this would place him in the “moderate risk” category of the guidance.
However, the ASA’s decision hinged on the demographics of his social media followers.
The ruling stated: “We considered that over 135,000 social media follower accounts registered to people under-18 was a significant number in absolute terms, with the true total figure potentially higher due to the absence of data for the other social media platforms.
“Although we accepted that his career as a football pundit and his media profile in isolation would have placed him within the ‘moderate risk’ category, we considered that a large number of social media follower accounts that were registered to under-18s and followed Neville indicated that the inclusion of Neville in an ad would make it of strong appeal to under-18s.”
Setting a precedent?
Although the ASA recognised that X had protection policies for under-18 users in 2023 and the ad was set to target over-25s with a stated interest in sport, it also noted that the platform relies on users self-verifying their age upon sign-up.
Like in a previous ruling against Midnite, it cited research from Ofcom that found 32% of eight to 17-year-olds with at least one social media account had a registered user age of 18 or above.
As a result, the ASA considered it likely that a significant number of children who had not used their real date of birth when signing up to X could see and be promoted to content from verified gambling accounts.
The ASA also addressed the issue of duplicate social media followers. While accepting that it is likely some individuals would follow the same person across different social media platforms, the ASA considered follower counts “a strong indication of that personality’s appeal and level of popularity”.
“In the absence of data indicating that duplication significantly reduced the follower count for a personality, we considered that advertisers should err on the side of assuming that all were individual followers,” the ruling continued.
Sky Bet were warned that the ad must not appear in its current form on social media again, and told not to include a person or character with a strong appeal to those under-18 in future advertising.
ASA accelerating action
Sky Bet was not the only operator to fall foul of the ASA in its latest set of rulings.
Eaton Gate Gaming Ltd, which trades as Kwiff, was similarly reprimanded for a post on Kwiff’s X account which featured Sir Lewis Hamilton.
The post in question featured text stating “A potentially huge weekend for Sir Lewis Hamilton ahead of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone [race car emoji] #F1”. The post contained an image of Sir Lewis Hamilton and a banner across the bottom that featured an 18+ symbol and the BeGambleAware.org logo.
Kwiff argued that the post followed CAP guidance, which stated that “motorsports and golf are more adult-oriented and unlikely to be of inherent ‘strong appeal”, and cited a 2022 report that found the median age of F1 fans was 32 and the majority were 25-44.
Kwiff also highlighted that its X page had 11,700 followers, and 0% of those were aged 13-17.
Given that the post was published the day before the 2024 British Grand Prix, which Hamilton won, the ASA ruled that the purpose of the communication was to promote Kwiff’s brand and gambling services, therefore, it fell under the scope of the CAP Code.
The ASA assessed that Hamilton’s “exceptional success” in his sport, social media presence and long-standing career place him as a household name in the UK.
CAP guidance states that sportspeople involved in clearly adult-oriented sports who are ‘notable stars’ with significant social media and general profiles which made them well known to under-18s were likely to be of ‘moderate risk’ of strong appeal to under-18s.
In the case of Hamilton, 4% of his 37.5 million followers on Instagram, approximately 1.5 million, were under 18 years of age.
This alone places him way above the 100,000 threshold, even before numbers from any other platforms are considered, and the ASA deemed him likely to have a strong appeal to under-18s.
“We acknowledged that Sir Lewis Hamilton was primarily famous for his association with an adult-oriented sport, but considered he was very well known to a general UK audience, including to children and young people. We considered, based on his public profile, commercial partnerships, media appearances and UK under-18 social media following, that he had strong appeal to under-18s,” the ruling concluded.
Betway Ltd was also reprimanded for airing a pre-roll YouTube advert that featured football fans wearing clothes and scarves with the Chelsea FC logo.
The ASA upheld a complaint that argued featuring the Chelsea logo would likely be of strong appeal to under-18s, and therefore breached the advertising code.
Under the CAP Code, football is deemed an activity of inherent strong appeal to under-18s.
Although the ASA noted that using the club logo in a standalone context would have been acceptable, showing it on fans’ scarves, lanyards and hats in the context of a stadium experience was likely to be of strong appeal to children and young people who supported Chelsea or followed football more widely.
Like with X, the ASA also cited YouTube’s age verification policy, which relies on users to self-report their age upon sign-up.
“Because YouTube was a media environment where users self-verified on customer sign-up and did not use robust age-verification, we considered that Betway had not excluded under-18s from the audience with the highest level of accuracy required for gambling ads where their content was likely to appeal strongly to under-18s,” the ruling explained.
Betway had argued that a brand lift survey showed that the ad campaign had resulted in an 8% increase in brand awareness, all of which was from YouTube users aged 55 and over.
The operator also stated that it had not included any active football play, wide shots of Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium or extended views of the pitch to reduce the ad’s connection with football.
Both Kwiff and Betway were informed that their respective ads must not appear in their current form and warned against including people or characters who had a strong appeal to those under 18 years of age.