ASA Rules on Juicemate

The Advertising Standards Authority said that Juicemate’s website, www.juicemate.co.uk, advertised an electronic cigarette brand with a section of the website titled “Vape Affiliate Program”. The page was viewed on 17 January 2024.

The advertising regulatory body said that text under the heading stated, “Click here to join our affiliate program!” with linked text, and further stated, “Earn a healthy, rewarding commission for every sale you deliver and form a partnership with a company that cares. So if you have a blog, or want to set up a dedicated affiliate website promoting vaping products, be sure to join our affiliate program. WHAT IS A VAPE AFFILIATE PROGRAM? Vaping affiliate programmes are offered […] to individuals who want to sell and promote our vaping products in return for a commission. It uses the principle of affiliate marketing, where affiliates (also known as publishers) promote a company's products through various online channels and earn a commission for each sale or lead they generate. HOW DOES YOUR AFFILIATE PROGRAM WORK? […] Juicemate will supply you (the affiliate) with unique referral links or discount codes. You can then share these with your audiences, whether you have a big following on your website, blog, social media platforms or via email marketing.”

The Advertising Standards Authority challenged itself over whether the advert breached the Advertising Code by “irresponsibly encouraging the promotion of e-cigarettes and related components online, because unlicensed nicotine-containing e-liquids and their components could not be promoted in online media.”

The advertising regulatory body wrote to Pixus Online Ltd, who responded that they were not aware that there was an issue with an affiliate programme as they had seen them on other vaping websites. 

Pixus Online Ltd removed the affiliate webpage on receiving the letter regarding the ASA investigation.

It was ruled that the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 (TRPR) on the advertising of unlicensed, nicotine-containing e-cigarettes in certain media had been breached. 

“The rule stated that, except for media targeted exclusively to the trade, marketing communications with the direct or indirect effect of promoting nicotine-containing e-cigarettes and their components, which were not licensed as medicines, were not permitted in newspapers, magazines and periodicals, or in online media and some other forms of electronic media. The ASA had previously found ads promoting nicotine-containing e-cigarettes on public social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Discord and TikTok in breach of CAP Code rule 22.12.”

The Advertising Standards Authority told the company that the ad must not appear again in the form investigated and to ensure that future marketing communications “must not have the direct or indirect effect of promoting nicotine-containing e-cigarettes and their components, for example through the advertising of affiliate schemes”. 

Photo Credit:

• Vapes Photo by Sierra Alpha Juliet on Unsplash

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

View Articles

Dave 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.