The internet can seem like a daunting place. Barely a week goes by without concerns about the impact of children spending time online making headlines. While the platforms and parents have responsibility for making sure children are safe, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) also has a role to play in ensuring the ads that children see, hear and engage with online aren’t harmful.
Recent research released by Ofcom has shown that children spend just over two hours a day online – more time than they spend in front of a TV. Ofcom’s study of their media use also showed that children are also increasingly drawn to platforms like YouTube and Netflix for the choice and control they offer. This is why it’s important our rules protect children across all media including online and social media, advergames (games which contain advertising), kids’ apps and video on demand services.
For example, advertisers must not exploit children’s vulnerability or lack of experience; nor should they contain anything that is likely to result in their physical, mental or moral harm.
As a result, our strict rules are designed to ensure children are not targeted by inappropriate content. For instance, ads for age-restricted products such as gambling, alcohol, e-cigarettes and food and soft drinks high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS), must be carefully targeted to reduce the likelihood of children being exposed to them. Where they do see them, strict content rules prohibit ads being of particular appeal – for example, through the use of cartoon or licensed characters and certain colours and imagery.
Targeting tools are becoming ever more sophisticated and parents, rightly, want reassurance that proper protections are in place. We take action where advertisers get it wrong.
Last year we banned an advergame for Swizzels, ‘Squashies World’, where the advertiser was unable to prove its audience didn’t include a significant number of children. Our rules prevent the advertising of HFSS products to an audience that is made up of more than 25% under-16s. Similarly, we banned content on a Cadbury’s website because some of the downloadable storybooks and activity packs promoted HFSS food and were targeted at children.
We have also ruled on instances where a child may be surfing the internet but logged in via an adult’s profile. Last year, a seven-year-old saw an in-app gambling ad on a shared device and we banned the ad, ruling that the advertiser should have taken further measures to minimize the likelihood of under-18s being exposed to the ad.
It’s not enough for advertisers to simply rely on self-declared ages; we know that children can register false birth dates to open social media accounts. Advertisers must prove to us that they’ve filtered out users whose browsing behaviour or profiles indicate that they might be age-inappropriate.
Parents are understandably wary and conscious of apps that encourage or exhort their child to make in-app purchases. This can result in worry when children are browsing the internet on their own or on a shared device. Our rules state that children should not be directly pressured to make purchases; we ruled against two online games, Bin Weevils and Moshi Monsters, which broke these rules.
In these instances, both games contained language and prominent calls to action that we considered put pressure on young players to purchase a membership subscription and in-game currency to take part in additional gameplay.
This year, we’ve started a new project specifically concerned with researching the ads that appear in games apps targeted at children under the age of eight, in order to have a clearer picture of exactly what ads they’re seeing, including to check whether they are being shown ads for age-restricted products and whether they are being put under pressure to make in-app purchases or micro-transactions. If we find that there are problems with ads on these apps we’ll take firm action to put things right.
We work year-round with advertisers to ensure that ads are targeted correctly, that they don’t contain inappropriate content marketing restricted products, or pressure children to make purchases.
Our rules are in place to make sure all ads are responsible – if you see an ad that you believe is misleading or harmful, we’d encourage you to submit a complaint to us.
Now, more than ever, there are measures in place to keep children safe when it comes to online ads – but we’re not complacent and will continue to make sure the rules are proportionate and robust, to ensure we’re doing our bit to make the internet safer for everyone.
From MNHQ: We will be passing on your questions to Craig and his team on Wednesday 13th February.