09/06/2017
Marketers placing age-restricted ads online should make good use of the latest targeting tools to enable them to demonstrate they have taken reasonable steps to target legitimate audiences and exclude protected ones, advises the latest guidance from the Committees of Advertising Practice.
Following on from ‘Younger children and recognition of on-line advertising’ and ‘New guidance on placing non-broadcast ads’, ‘Children & age-restricted ads online’ also reflects how the increasing diversity of online activity is making it more imperative for advertisers to target their ads effectively and responsibly.
This is particularly so when advertising concerns alcohol, gambling and other products banned by the CAP Code from being targeted at children and young people.
In general terms, the guidance strongly advises that factors selected and/or de-selected by advertisers to define their target audience should clearly favour adults over excluded age groups.
More specifically, it advises that advertisers should
- take reasonable steps to ensure that adverts attracting a media placement restriction are not placed in media appealing to the 16-18 age group
- bear in mind that some children may have lied about their ages on social media
- take more care in selecting appropriate targeting information as the age profile of the targeted audience gets closer to the age at which CAP’s media placement restriction is set
- when using an interest with a potentially broad age appeal to target a group, combine it with additional interest factors that are likely to have the effect of excluding the restricted age group from the audience