November 23, 2017

Given the recent, less than glowing, media attention gambling operators have received for their advertising, it is great to see a gambling operator show some of the country’s top higher educational institutions how to stay on the right side of the ASA.

Last week, we saw the ASA rule that statements by universities such as: “Top 5 for student satisfaction (National Student Survey 2005-2016)” and “The UK’s No 1 Arts University (for three years running)“, were unable to be substantiated as the advertisers were unable to produce data in support of the claims. In parallel, an adjudication in favour of Skill On Net, who was promoting its online casino, showed that data could demonstrate the casino’s claims were capable of substantiation. In response to two complainants who each received a leaflet for an online casino, playojo.com, which contained the text: “Play your ojo Wheel and win Free Spins“, Skill on Net produced a spreadsheet of data to prove that the phrase was not making a claim which wasn’t able to be substantiated.

The data, provided by the operator as part of the ASA’s investigation, showed logs captured from their gaming system which demonstrated how the promotion worked. It was sent to almost 2500 existing PlayOJO players and the free spin was activated upon those players logging into their account. The spreadsheet showed the dates and times people logged on and exactly when the free wheel spin was credited to players’ accounts. In addition, for those that took advantage of the free spin, the spreadsheet also showed how many of these players went on to win further free spins.

The ASA decided, having examined the data, that it supported the fact that players did use their free spins and that a large number of those who did went on to win further free spins. This meant that the claim was able to be substantiated and there was, therefore, no breach of the CAP Code.

Not only is this some positive PR for the gambling industry, it’s also positive for the advertising regulator. It’s not often that there are several adjudications with alleged breaches of the same rules and this provides some real insight into how the ASA looks at data in support of whether or not an ad is misleading and also regarding the substantiation of claims.

The ASA has often commented on the importance it puts on data when investigating potential breaches of the advertising codes, however, we have far less often seen advertisers compiling and recording it properly to be able to see them use it to their benefit. In the online world, there is a rich set of data that advertisers can call upon – what these adjudications have shown us is that marketing departments need to be mindful of how this might be used to their advantage.