Home Field Ad-van-tage: Upheld - ASA Rules in favour of LC International Ltd t/a Coral

United Kingdom

The Advertising Standards Authority (the "ASA") issued a ruling on 31 July 2024 in relation to a claim that digital billboard advertisements were irresponsibly placed nearby two schools by LC International Ltd t/a Coral. The ASA did not uphold the complaint.

The Advertisement

In March 2024, Coral displayed an ad on a digital billboard mounted on a van (a "digivan") which was parked in Cheltenham during the Cheltenham Festival Horse meeting amidst several similar vehicles. The advert featured a man looking through binoculars while dressed in typical horse racing attire and surrounded by text which stated: "THE HEAD TO TOE TWEEDERS […] WE’RE HERE FOR IT […] CORAL[.]"

Coral Response

Coral provided details of their annual digivan promotion at the Cheltenham Festival Horse meeting, where eight mobile digital billboards are deployed for each day of the festival, on the route between the racecourse and the town centre. Coral maintained that the promotion followed ASA recommendations for ads promoting age-restricted products in outdoor media which state that such ads should not be within 100 metres of a school and had implemented further measures to minimise children being exposed to the advertisements.

In the morning, digivans were instructed to park facing the direction of travel for racecourse attendees, then would drive around the town centre near the racecourse during races. Once the racing had concluded, they would park in the direction of travel for those travelling from the racecourse to the town centre/ station. Digivans were scheduled to be live from 9am to 5pm, while vans might be in place prior to this time to secure a parking spot, instructions were given by Coral not to turn the screens on until 9am. Accordingly, Coral argued the screens would only have been activated once children had already entered the school grounds and moved nearer to the racecourse (and therefore further from schools) once the races had finished.

Coral argued digivans were instructed to stay, wherever possible, at least 200 metres away from any school (although acknowledged instances where they were closer than the 200 metre target) and provided a map showing the digivans’ proximity to local schools. After being made aware of the complaint, Coral re-briefed their media partners and agencies of their 200 metre policy (despite the digivan concerned in the instance complained of being further than the 100 metre ASA guidance).

Mobile Media Group Response

Coral advertising provider Mobile Media Group also responded to the complaint (although stated they had not received any direct complaints related to the advertisements). They argued they were cognisant of ensuring campaigns for age-restricted products did not target children and provided in-house guidance to employees on these issues. They stated the digivans were over 100 metres from local schools and had their screens facing passing traffic, so were not in the direct sightline of any school (reiterating that the advertisements were intended to be seen by people travelling to the racecourse).

Assessment

The ASA did not uphold the complaint.

The CAP Code requires that marketing communications for gambling are not directed at under 18s and ties this requirement directly to the advertisement medium used. No medium should be used where under 18s form more than 25% of their audience.

The ASA assessed the locations of the digivans in the map provided by Coral (and confirmed these matched the location given in the complaint) and found the morning location of the vans to be over 800 metres from a secondary school and 150 metres from a primary school. Despite this, it was acknowledged that, given the various outdoor locations and the untargeted nature of the ad, they were likely to have been seen by large numbers of people which could include under 18s.

Consideration was also given to the digivan locations not being within direct sightline of any primary school grounds and the further precautions taken by Coral. These were taken as being likely to have further reduced the number of under 18s likely to see the ad, and so making it unlikely that under 18s formed over 25% of the advert’s audience.

The ASA concluded that appropriate steps were taken to comply with relevant media placement restrictions and so no breach was identified under rules 1.3, 16.1, 16.3, or 16.3.13 of the CAP Code.

Comment

This case serves as a helpful reminder of the difficulties of using untargeted advertising methods and the challenges these methods raise when dealing with restricted products like gambling services. Equally however, Coral followed, and was able to evidence, the precautions they had taken to reduce the potential exposure of their advertisements to under 18s and had done so with consideration for ASA rules and guidance. The importance of effective communication and oversight of internal and external teams, as the response of Mobile Media Group demonstrates, is key to ensuring internal policies are adopted in practice and can be monitored constantly to evidence compliance.

Co-authored by Rachel Lawson, trainee solicitor at CMS