Banned, vape ad on Instagram that targeted children
CONTROVERSIAL vaping brand Vype has been criticised for an Instagram promotion that used images of Lily Allen and other celebrities.
Advertising for the company, which is owned by British American Tobacco (BAT), broke rules around the public promotion of products containing nicotine.
One of the firm’s Instagram posts also fell foul of controls to protect easily influenced young people.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the posts breached controls on the marketing of e-cigarettes containing nicotine to the general public. These rules were introduced following a change in the law in 2016 which imposed a widespread ban on the marketing of tobacco and related products.
The ASA took action following complaints from groups Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the Campaign For Tobacco-Free Kids and Stopping Tobacco Organisations And Products.
Vaping has been recommended by doctors to help people give up tobacco, however some argue the marketing is risky because it portrays e-cigarettes as fashionable. The ruling against Vype and BAT was one of four upheld against a range of vaping brands and retailers. Three of Vype’s Instagram posts featuring Lily Allen were based around its partnership with her – with one in relation to the House of Holland fashion brand, another to London Fashion Week and a third to the Brit Awards, where she was nominated for an award.
One advert featured Rami Malek, and congratulated him for an award for his role in the film Bohemian Rhapsody. And another showed Love Island’s Olivia Attwood smoking an e-cigarette. A separate Instagram story from February showed a model who looked under 25 using a Vype e-cigarette, which is against rules designed to protect youngsters.
The ASA said the adverts went beyond providing factual content and pointed out the reliance on imagery featuring Lily Allen, Olivia Attwood and House of Holland.
It said: ‘We told [BAT] 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.’
BAT argued they ensured the information they provided was factual and the marketing would only have been seen by people ‘who had previously expressed an interest in, or sought out information regarding, the e-cigarette category’ and its products.
Head of ASH Deborah Arnott welcomed the ruling, saying: ‘BAT’s social media tactics for Vype were both irresponsible and unlawful and must never be repeated.’ Complaints were also upheld against Instagram posts by Mylo Vape UK, Attitude Vapes and JuiceNPower. All broke the rules by publicly promoting nicotinebased vape liquids and using images of people that looked under 25.