Mylo Rapped By ASA
Mylo Vape UK has been found guilty of breaking two codes by the Advertising Standards Authority
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by Dave Cross
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The ASA investigated two complaints made by Allen Carr’s Easyway relating to an advert in an Instagram post by Mylo Vape UK, an pod style e-cigarette retailer, posted 2 October 2018, including the caption “#repost @rae_eleanor loving her #mylo” alongside the image of someone with an e-cigarette.
The complaints were that the advert breached ASA’s Code by promoting unlicensed, nicotine-containing e-cigarettes and their components on Instagram. Allen Carr’s Easyway also challenged whether the advert breached the Code by featuring someone with an e-cigarette who appeared to be under 25 years old.
Mylo Vape UK accepted that the post could be regarded as indirectly promotional and was beyond purely being factual. They said they were unable to restrict users viewing the post as a general rule, but they could reduce the visibility of a particular post by not adding hash tags to it. Mylo Vape UK believed the Instagram platform was analogous to a website and therefore sharing factual information was permitted. Mylo accepted that the image may have appeared to be of someone under 25, but said they were unable to verify the age of the individual.
ASA stated: “We did not consider the ad was permitted on Instagram as set out in CAP Code rule 22.10, stated that anyone shown using e-cigarettes or playing a significant role must neither be, nor seem to be, under 25 years of age. We considered the person shown in the ad appeared to be using an e-cigarette and, as the only person featured in the post’s image, they played a significant role in it. We considered that the woman appeared to be under 25 and we had also not seen evidence that she was 25 or older at the time the ad was published. We therefore concluded that the ad breached the Code.”
It added: “The ad must not appear again in the form complained about. We told Global Vaping Group Ltd t/a Mylo Vape UK that marketing communications with the direct or indirect effect of promoting nicotine-containing e-cigarettes and their components which were not licensed as medicines should not be made from a public Instagram account in future, unless they had taken steps to ensure they would only be distributed to those following their account and would not be seen by other users. If advertising in media permitted under rule 22.12, they must not show people who are, or seem to be, under 25, using e-cigarettes or playing a significant role.”
Director of the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath Professor Anna Gilmore said: "This is a major step forward in stopping the tobacco industry from promoting its new addictive products to children and teenagers. But given that cigarette sales are falling and tobacco companies are desperate to recruit young people into using these new products, ongoing vigilance is essential."
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Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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