April 24, 2017

The new guidance is designed to help marketers of age-sensitive products comply with the media placement rules in the CAP Code. Ads 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.

Media placement restrictions currently exist for electronic cigarette, alcohol and gambling advertising. From July 2017, similar restrictions will apply to ads for food and soft drink products high in fat, salt and sugar.

CAP reminds marketers that they must be able to demonstrate 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.

CAP says it will shortly publish additional, dedicated guidance for certain types of online media. This will provide more advice on how interest-based targeting can be used to help reduce children’s exposure to age-restricted marketing communications in online environments such as social media platforms. To access the CAP guidance “Media placement restrictions: protecting children and young people” in full, click here.