CAP guidance on non-broadcast ad placement

The Committee of Advertising Practice has today published new guidance on non-broadcast ad placement (that can be downloaded below) that is designed to help the marketers of age-sensitive products – such as alcohol and gambling – to abide by its media placement rules. Advertisements for age-restricted products and services must not appear in media:

  • for children (under-16s) or children and young people (under-18s); and
  • where children or children and young people make up a significant proportion – more than 25% – of the audience.

Marketers must be able to demonstrate to the Advertising Standards Authority that they have taken the appropriate steps to target their ads appropriately. Ideally, they should hold robust audience measurement data to show that they know the likely audience who will see their ad and that they can legitimately be targeted with age-restricted content. Where audiences are created on the basis of data on a marketing list or account data, marketers should ensure they take all steps to avoid directing communications at age categories (children and young people) protected by the guidance; the most important step in this is to ensure the exclusion of those known to be under the relevant age category.

CAP has announced that in the coming months, it will publish further guidance on media placement, that will focus in on online environments such as social networks, providing marketers with more in-depth advice on how interest-based targeting – using data on user’s preferences and behaviour – can be used to better secure against inappropriate targeting of ads.