Paddy Power Ad Ban For Gambling Taking Priority
15 June 2022
ShareSave
An advert for wagering company Paddy Power has been banned for encouraging repeated gaming, by showing it taking top priority over household.
The advert features a woman asking her sweetheart "Do you believe I'll end up appearing like my mum?".
He, distracted by a betting app, responds "I hope so".
The business stated it the decision from the marketing regulator and would consider the guidance it had been provided.
Displayed in March 2022 across TV and online, the advertisement revealed the guy sitting in a living-room next to his sweetheart, whilst utilizing his phone to play one of the company's betting video games.
His sweetheart's mom brings the couple a drink, after which his sweetheart postures the question to which the male reacts without thinking, while continuing to gaze at his phone. Following his sweetheart's incredulous stare, the man returns, ashamed, to playing the betting video game.
The advert's narrator then specifies: "So no matter how severely you pack it up, you'll always get another possibility with Paddy Power games".
Celebrities and footballers to get gambling advertisement restriction
Tesco plant-based food advert prohibited as misleading
Adidas sports bra adverts prohibited over bare breasts
The ad received 3 problems from audiences, all of which were supported. One complainant said the ad showed the male was so preoccupied with betting it had actually led him to make an "unsuitable remark".
The UK's marketing watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) stated the advertisement "encouraged recurring gaming" due to the fact that it "depicted gaming as taking top priority in life, over household".
A Paddy Power representative told the BBC the firm was "devoted to responsible practice and it is always our intent to abide by the Advertising Codes. We accept the choice of the ASA and will consider its broader guidance moving forwards".
The complainants to the ASA believed that the guy was depicted as letting gambling take priority over his domesticity and was "socially reckless".
Paddy Power protected itself to the ASA, arguing that the ad implied a "commitment to family life", given that it represented the scene of a conventional household setting, with the guy joining his girlfriend's parents for Sunday lunch, and was planned to be "light-hearted".
The ASA told Paddy Power that its adverts might not represent gambling as "taking top priority in life, or depict, excuse or encourage gambling behaviour that was socially careless", which the adverts might no longer be displayed in their present type.
Clearcast, the company accountable for clearing adverts before broadcast in the UK, said that it accepted the ASA judgment, and will take the assistance in to factor to consider when clearing future betting ads.
The judgment follows a larger campaign by the ASA to secure down on socially reckless advertising and use harder guidelines for betting advertising in specific.