CAP has reminded advertisers that new rules protecting under-18s came into force on 1 October 2022 to protect young and other vulnerable people from gambling advertising-related harms. You can find our earlier blog posts on this here.

The previous restrictions on creative content required that ads must not be of “particular appeal” to under-18s. The new rules are based on a “strong” appeal test, which prohibits content (imagery, themes and characters) that has a significant level of appeal to under-18s, regardless of how it is viewed by adults.

In practice, CAP says, this will significantly restrict the imagery and references that gambling ads will be allowed to use and should decrease the potential for gambling ads to attract the attention of under-18s in an audience. For example, freely accessible ads will not be able to use:

• topflight footballers and footballers with a considerable following among under-18 on social media;
• all sportspeople well-known to under-18s, including sportspeople with a considerable volume of under-18 followers on social media;
• references to video game content and gameplay popular with under-18s; and
• stars from reality shows popular with under-18s, such as Love Island.

CAP says that marketers now need to ensure their campaigns comply. Ideally, they should adapt their compliance processes to assess all the pieces of content included in their creatives (a character, personality, graphic etc.) under the new standard. Ultimately, in the event of a complaint or proactive monitoring work, they must satisfy the ASA that there are no indicators of content being of significant interest or popularity among under-18s.

CAP advises that marketers should:

• remember that content for under-18s (like characters from children’s media or overtly child-oriented themes) is strictly prohibited;
• for all other pieces of content, scope out relevant connections and consider where the character used originates from, whether the graphical style employed is similar to a type of popular video game, and what the brand ambassador might be known for outside the context of the ad; the emphasis should be on current and more recent activities;
• avoid activities or roles of an aspirational nature or likely to have significant affinities for under-18s, e.g. the role of captain in a UK national sports team;
• identify metrics associated with the various roles and activities that need to be scoped out, such as audience data for associated TV shows, cinema, video games, or follower/analytic data for social media accounts; the latter can be used in relation to personalities but also characters, like those from video games; and
• remember that the more comprehensive the assessment, the more effective in reducing risk; if data from one or more of the sources suggests under-18s are present at more than very low levels in the audience, there is a significant risk that ASA will uphold a complaint.

The new rules are also accompanied by several exemptions to allow gambling and lotteries products related to areas of higher risk of appeal to under-18s to be advertised within limited circumstances. There is also an exemption from the new standards for ads delivered subject to strict age-verification. To read CAP’s advice in full and for links to further information and guidance, click here.