Buzz Bingo in breach of ASA rules with ad that “appealed to children”

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has issued a ruling on a Buzz Bingo Group advert which included cartoon Halloween imagery that was “likely to appeal to children”.

In challenging whether the ad breached the CAP Code, Buzz Bingo emphasised that the material was featured on its social media page which was restricted to Facebook users aged 18 years and above. 

Furthermore, the ad – seen on 20 October 2023 – was also used as part of a focused campaign ‘specifically targeted at users aged 25’ who had a confirmed interest in bingo, Buzz highlighted.

However, the ASA has ruled that its content breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 16.1 and 16.3.12 (Gambling).

In detail, the video contained animated footage of a full moon above a scene which featured grinning pumpkin heads, a lit church with towers with roofs resembling pointed witches’ hats, bats flying around, a spider in a web and a graveyard with a tombstone and a cross. 

Text in a font which resembled slime read “MONSTER MONDAYS – £50,000 MUST BE WON EVERY MONDAY IN OCTOBER …”, while logos for Buzz Bingo and “18+ – BeGambleAware.org” appeared at the bottom of the screen.

Buzz believed the platform that the ad featured on – Facebook – was one with evidence for the accuracy of its targeting, and therefore argued it had acted and had taken precautions to prevent children and young people being exposed to the ad.

However, the bingo group did acknowledge the concern that the Halloween imagery could appeal to children, and had removed the ad on receipt of notification of the complaint and said it was making changes to its internal marketing approval procedures.

The ASA said: “We considered the ad was likely to be of strong appeal to children. We considered it would have been acceptable for the ad to have appeared in a medium where under-18s, for all intents and purposes, could be entirely excluded from the audience. 

“That would apply in circumstances where those who saw the ad had been robustly age-verified as being 18 or older, such as through marketing lists which had been validated by payment data or credit checking. 

“However, because Facebook was a media environment where users self-verified on customer sign-up and did not use robust age-verification, we considered Buzz Bingo had not excluded under-18s from the audience with the highest level of accuracy required for ads where their content was likely to appeal strongly to under-18s.”

The body concluded that the ad ‘must not appear again’ in the form complained of, explaining that it has told Buzz Group Ltd not to include themes or imagery that were likely to have strong appeal to those under 18 years of age in future advertising.