We reported in June 2017 on publication by the Committee of Advertising Practice of guidance on children and age-restricted ads online that would be of interest to clients in both the gambling and alcohol industries.

Updated ‘Age-restricted Ads Online’ Guidance (that you can download below) has now been published, in relation to which the ASA/CAP website states as follows:

This CAP Guidance helps marketers prepare and target marketing communications responsibly with child audiences in mind, following previous work on recognition of advertising by under-12s and non-broadcast ad placement.

Given the growing diversity of activity online, it’s important for advertisers to target their ads effectively and responsibly.  This is particularly the case in relation to advertising for gambling, alcohol and other products that the ad rules ban from being targeted at children and young people under 18.

To support compliance with the rules, CAP has produced guidance to help advertisers make the best use of those tools to target legitimate audiences responsibly and exclude, to the best of their ability, the protected audience.

This has been updated to replace previous guidance published on 6 June 2017.

UK-licensed gambling operators are reminded that LCCP:

• Social Responsibility Code provision 5.1.6 provides that they “must comply with the advertising codes of practice issued by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) as applicable” and
• Ordinary Code provision 5.1.8 provides that they “should follow any relevant industry code on advertising, notably the Gambling Industry Code for Socially Responsible Advertising”.

In so doing, they should also take account of not only this newly updated CAP ‘Age-restricted Ads Online’ Guidance but also:

• the April 2017 CAP guidance on non-broadcast ad placement and
• the 6th edition of the Gambling Industry Code for Socially Responsible Advertising published in August 2020 that has been “designed to further advance new requirements designed to better protect children and vulnerable consumers online” and includes particular provision for social media marketing, promoting consumer awareness, search activity and affiliate activity (as previously reported by us here).