Paddy Power Ad Ban For Gambling Taking Priority
15 June 2022
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An advert for wagering company Paddy Power has been banned for encouraging repeated gambling, by revealing it taking concern over household.
The advert features a woman asking her partner "Do you think I'll end up appearing like my mum?".
He, sidetracked by a gambling app, responds "I hope so".
The company stated it accepted the choice from the marketing regulator and would consider the guidance it had been given.
Displayed in March 2022 across TV and online, the advertisement showed the male sitting in a beside his sweetheart, whilst utilizing his phone to play among the company's betting games.
His sweetheart's mother brings the couple a beverage, after which his sweetheart postures the question to which the man responds without thinking, while continuing to stare at his phone. Following his sweetheart's incredulous look, the guy returns, embarrassed, to playing the betting game.
The advert's narrator then specifies: "So no matter how terribly you pack it up, you'll constantly get another chance with Paddy Power games".
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The ad received 3 problems from viewers, all of which were supported. One complainant stated the advertisement showed the guy was so preoccupied with gambling it had actually led him to make an "improper remark".
The UK's advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) stated the advertisement "encouraged recurring gambling" since it "depicted betting as taking priority in life, over household".
A Paddy Power spokesperson told the BBC the company was "committed to accountable practice and it is constantly our objective to adhere to the Advertising Codes. We accept the decision of the ASA and will consider its wider assistance moving forwards".
The complainants to the ASA thought that the guy was represented as letting gambling take top priority over his domesticity and was "socially reckless".
Paddy Power protected itself to the ASA, arguing that the advertisement indicated a "commitment to family life", because it depicted the scene of a traditional family setting, with the male joining his sweetheart's moms and dads for Sunday lunch, and was intended to be "light-hearted".
The ASA informed Paddy Power that its adverts could not portray betting as "taking priority in life, or depict, excuse or motivate gambling behaviour that was socially reckless", and that the adverts might no longer be shown in their present type.
Clearcast, the business responsible 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 project by the ASA to secure down on socially careless marketing and use harder rules for gambling advertising in particular.