Marketers must be mindful of the medium they use to advertise their products, a recent ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority shows.
ACME Vapes Ltd got into hot water with the ASA thanks to a LinkedIn post, which embedded a cinema advert for their IVG brand, because it promoted e-cigarettes - which are only allowed to be advertised to trade customers – to a wider audience.
“Marketing communications which are only permitted for specific groups such as trade or healthcare professionals are likely to be in breach if they’re included within LinkedIn posts,” explained OTC advertising consultancy AdverCheck.
“Although LinkedIn is seen as professional business-to-business social media, advertisers should consider that any marketing communications on LinkedIn will be viewed by the general public,” AdverCheck advised.
Paid Or Not Paid, Doesn’t Matter
Following a complaint from a freelance public health researcher, ASA investigated three issues relating to a cinema advert by for ACME’s IVG brand which included the claim “e-cigarettes are around 95% less harmful than smoking.”
ACME then reposted the advert on LinkedIn, stating: “Exciting news. We’re thrilled to announce that our latest advert will be hitting the big screens across Vue, Odeon, and Cineworld cinemas across the UK! You can catch our ad right before the highly anticipated Deadpool and Wolverine film. Don’t miss it!”
As ASA noted, rule 22.12 of the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing (CAP Code) bans the advertising of unlicensed, nicotine-containing e-cigarettes in certain media, based on the UK’s Tobacco and Related Products Regulations.
The rule states that marketing communications with the direct or indirect effect of promoting nicotine-containing e-cigarettes and their components that are not licensed as medicines are not permitted in newspapers, magazines and periodicals, or in online media and some other forms of electronic media.
ACME argued that the LinkedIn post was aimed only at updating its followers on their marketing activities and was not paid for, and therefore it was not an ad.
However, because the post included the embedded cinema ad, ASA considered that the overall post was a marketing communication falling within the remit of the CAP Code, and therefore not allowed.
LinkedIn: Not Just Trade Professionals
ACME also argued that the LinkedIn post was published as an organic post to their professional network as an update on their marketing activities. It was therefore not a sales message.
ACME is here pointing to an exception to CAP Code rule 22.12, which concerns media targeted exclusively to the trade.
ASA conceded that LinkedIn is a business and employment-focused social media platform. “Therefore, we considered it was likely that many of those who followed IVG Vapes’ account were professionals including those in related industries.”
However, ASA pointed out that it was unlikely that their followers belonged exclusively to the trade. Additionally, it is possible for public posts from a LinkedIn account to be distributed beyond those users who had signed up to follow it.
“For instance, if an individual interacted with IVG Vapes’ content, then the original content would be pushed out to that individual’s LinkedIn connections, not all of whom would be involved in the e-cigarette trade.”
“Further to that, LinkedIn could serve suggested posts from outside of a user’s network that they believed could be relevant based on their preferences and use history.”
“For those reasons, we considered the media was not targeted exclusively to the trade.”
Unauthorized Health Claim
ASA also considered the claim “e-cigarettes are around 95% less harmful than smoking” – derived from a 2015 Public Health England report – to be misleading.
“We considered that consumers were likely to interpret the claim to mean that by using ACME’s e-cigarettes, existing smokers could improve their overall health, and therefore it was an implied health claim relating to ACME’s products,” ASA explained.
The ad in question also briefly featured a wide range of IVG products in one shot, without making clear what the individual products were, and made references to the brand in general, ASA continued.
ASA therefore considered that the advert was likely to be interpreted as promoting the IVG Vapes range in general, rather than individual vapes.
“For that reason, evidence to support the claim that the products were 95% less harmful than smoking should be based on IVG Vapes’ entire range.”
However, the regulator had not seen any evidence that showed ACME’s products, individually or as a range, were 95% less harmful than smoking. “We therefore concluded that the claim was misleading.”
