The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned two advertisements created by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in partnership with KP Snacks.
In August last year, the ECB tournament The Hundred and its official team partner KP Snacks, produced an email advertisement and a paid-for Instagram ad to promote McCoy’s, Butterkist and a free cricket giveaway.
The email campaign featured a colourful and bright cartoon-style image of cricket players, set against a street background. Below The Hundred and KP owned McCoy’s logo, text stated that members of the public could claim a free bat and ball.
The paid-for Instagram ad, posted by Butterkist, also owned by KP, featured a picture of Butterkist Crunchy Toffee Popcorn, alongside an image of a cricket bat and ball. This promotion also included a giveaway, but for tickets to watch Birmingham Phoenix.
In 2018 the Committee of Advertising Regulations (CAP) ruled that products high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS products) should not be knowingly advertised to under 16’s.
Sustain’s Children’s Food Campaign and Food Active complained to the ASA about the ECB and KP snacks advertisements, challenging whether they were marketing HFSS products to children.
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The cricket board and snacks company responded by claiming that their email campaigns were targeted at “family categories” and individuals over the age 18. Despite these claims, they did in fact admit to 326 (1.3%) of the 29,276 individuals in the ECB database, being under the age of 16.
Though the ASA considered that the “cartoonish” nature of the email did not necessarily mean it was directed at children, the authority ruled that because the HFSS product placement had reached individuals below the age of 16, it was in breach of the CAP code.
As for the Butterkist paid-for Instagram ad, KP snacks and the ECB responded to complaints by stating that the promoted post was targeted at adults. They even provided information that showed the Birimingham Phoenix ad was aimed at 25 to 44 year olds within 40km of Birmingham.
However, the ASA found that KP Snacks had not used any “interest-based factors” to exclude groups of people more likely to be under 16.
“We considered that ECB and KP Snacks had not taken sufficient care to ensure that ad (h), which featured an HFSS product, was not directed at people under 16, and that ad therefore breached the Code,” the ASA said.
Both advertisements were ordered to be taken down.
“We told The England and Wales Cricket Board Ltd and KP Snacks Ltd to take reasonable steps in future to ensure that HFSS product ads were not directed at children through the selection of media or the context in which they appeared.”
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