Advertisment
A sponsored advertisement for Tony Bet appeared on YouTube. It depicted a man using his phone while sitting on the toilet. The advertisement included the following wording: ‘Only 3% of people can do this. Make money while sitting on the toilet.’
A footnote included a responsibility message together with terms and conditions on the promoted offer.
Complaint
The complainant considered the advertisement was claiming that gambling was easy and was playing down the dangers of gambling.
Response
The advertiser stated that after reviewing the complaint they had taken immediate action in relation to the advertisement, particularly, they had urgently discontinued non-compliant advertisements with immediate effect.
They underlined that they were committed to being compliant with industry advertising standards and applicable regulatory requirements. They said that they had internal advertising guidance published on Confluence page (internal informational page) where they took into account provisions of the ASA code and provided overall compliance guidance to all internal teams responsible for marketing activity preparation and management. In addition to this, as a second line of defence, they said that all marketing campaigns were subject to compliance review and approval through internal ticketing system “Jira”.
In this case, they said that the advertisement was handled by a mobile affiliation partner. This partner was provided with Tonybet internal marketing compliance guidelines and staff training took place; however, the partner expanded their team and due to human error, one of the new employees did not check the created advertising templates against the guidelines before uploading them for distribution. They said that the partner did not warn them that the advertising material would be launched for YouTube and due to high workload, the Tonybet Marketing team missed the material in question and campaign managers launched the material automatically, assuming it has passed the multiple checks.
They said that it was unfortunate that due to human error the particular advertising material was not submitted for compliance review and marketing guidance was not followed. They had raised compliance concerns to the management of the Marketing teams and the importance in following marketing compliance guidelines available. They said that an additional training session had been organised with relevant stakeholders as a matter of reminder in order to eliminate human errors in the future. Due to a gross violation of the rules, their Marketing department had reviewed their Material approval process and increased the approval steps from 2 to 5 and their continuation of the partnership with the affiliate would also be reviewed.
They underlined that they were fully committed to the compliance with respective rules and regulations in the territory of Ireland and the current advertisement launch was not a deliberate action of the company but, a mistake of a 3rd party employee.
Conclusion
Complaint Upheld
The Complaints Council considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response.
The Council noted the requirements of the Code that marketing communications for gambling should not portray, condone or encourage gambling behaviour that is socially irresponsible or could lead to financial, social or emotional harm (S. 10.12a), portray gambling as indispensable or as taking priority in life (S. 10.12d) or suggest that solitary gambling is preferable to social gambling (S. 10.12j). The Council noted that the advertisement had included a suggestion that gambling was a substitute to working by stating that; ‘only 3% of people can do this. Make money while sitting on the toilet.’ They considered the statement ‘Make money while sitting on the toilet’ had strongly indicated that gambling would be a source of income, and encouraging such a belief could lead to financial harm.
In the circumstances, the Council considered that the advertising was in breach of Sections 3.3, 10.12 (a), 10.12 (b), 10.12 (c), 10.12 (j) and 10.12 (k) of the Code.
Action Required
The advertisement must not reappear in its current form.
