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Nick Denton mentions this during his talk:

- Blogonomics: The End of Micropublishing? – by Felix Salmon.

- “A Nielsen advertising effectiveness study commissioned by Apple and Campbell’s Soups to evaluate the soup brand’s iAd campaign said viewers were twice as likely to recall seeing it, three times as likely to remember the ad message and five times as likely to remember the brand as viewers who saw it on TV.“

- Disabled Account FAQ – AdSense Help.

- The debate on “Sacked by a Google algorithm”.

[I am not paid to run this ad. Just information.]

Old one with Nicole Kidman:

http://www.chaneln5.com/

Ad

An e-mail ad for an online poker site showed a photograph of a young woman. Text stated “ONLINE EXPERIENCE IS MEASURED IN GAMES, NOT YEARS. JOIN THE NEW BREED. Annette Obrestad – “ANNETTE_15″.

Issue

1. The complainant objected that the ad was irresponsible, because it might encourage children and young people to gamble.

2. The ASA challenged whether the ad breached the gambling provisions of the Code, because we understood Annette Obrestad was 20 years of age.

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Assessment

1. Upheld

The ASA noted Betfair’s assurance that no under 18s would be sent the e-mail because of the age-restriction arrangement they had with Lucky Lotto. Whilst we accepted the ad had not been deliberately targeted at young people in its distribution, we also noted the Code stated that marketing communications should not be likely to be of particular appeal to children or young persons, especially by reflecting or being associated with youth culture. We considered that Ms. Obrestad’s online handle in the ad, “Annette_15″, together with text stating “ONLINE EXPERIENCE IS MEASURED IN GAMES, NOT YEARS”, implied that Ms. Obrestad was even younger than she was (aged 20). Because of that, we concluded the ad was likely to have particular appeal to children and young people, and that, by representing a successful young poker player with the implication she was 15 years old, it could encourage young people to gamble and was therefore irresponsible.

On this point the ad breached CAP Code clauses 57.2 and 57.4l (Gambling).

2. Upheld

We noted the Code stated that no one under 25 years of age should be featured gambling in a marketing communication, or playing a significant role. Because Ms Obrestad was 20 years old and because, as a professional poker player, she played a significant role in gambling in the ad, we concluded the ad breached the provisions of the Code.

On this point the ad breached CAP Code clause 57.2 and 57.4n (Gambling).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Betfair to ensure that no one who was, or seemed to be, under 25 years old appeared gambling or playing a significant role in their ads going forward.

Thanks to our commenter for the tip.

Previously: BetFair has been ordered to drop starting price ad. — Misleading BetFair ads are now banned in the UK.

Misleading BetFair ads are now banned in the UK.

The UK’s advertising watchdog has ruled against a promotional campaign run by betting exchange Betfair after the company failed to qualify its claims of offering dramatically better starting prices to horse race gamblers.

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Advertising Standards Authority (ASA):

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted Betfair’s argument that the claim “40% BETTER SP…” would be understood by consumers as a factual statement of the average difference between the BSP and industry SP. We noted the comparison of SP and BSP odds for winning horses sent by Betfair and acknowledged that it demonstrated the accuracy of the average difference between the two. However, we noted the ad stated “40% BETTER SP” and was not qualified in any way and considered that consumers were likely to infer that such a figure was typical of what they could expect when betting at the BSP, although we acknowledged that consumers were unlikely to expect that to be the case in all instances.

We noted Betfair’s data demonstrated that a significant majority of winners had a significantly lower difference between BSP and the industry SP. Around 3000 of the total 17,000 races had a BSP either the same or worse than the industry SP and around 12,000 had a BSP that was only 20% better or less, while around only 2000 had a BSP that was 40% better or more. We considered that the basic average figure used by Betfair was skewed due to the influence of winners with very long odds, which tended to have a disproportionately higher difference between BSP and SP. Because we considered that Betfair had not shown that the average figure they used was typically representative of the difference between the BSP and SP, we considered that the claim was likely to mislead.

The ads breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 19.1 (Other comparisons).

Action

The ads must not appear again in their current form.

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Previously: BetFair slammed for misleading ad

Next: UK’s Advertising Standards Authority slaps BetFair again —this time, over e-mail ads featuring a young poker player.