A policy rework by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has streamlined rules around under-18s advertising for gambling and lottery providers.

Affecting both the watchdog’s Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP), the update builds on the 2022 framework that changed the strictness of marketing monitoring.

Focusing on input from shareholders three years into the implementation of the new standard, the ASA has now updated both CAP and BCAP with more context about potential harmful advertising, particularly around marketing content that includes personalities with social media presence.

The update now clearly states under what conditions will a personality’s social media profile be indicative of a “strong” appeal to under-18s.

“One rule of thumb is that at least a total of 100,000 social media follower accounts registered to people under-18, across social media platforms, is indicative of strong appeal,” the code now reads, meaning that companies should be wary of collaborating with someone who has over that amount of followers across their social presence.

“Marketers should consider this rule of thumb when considering whether a given personality is likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s.”

This of course could vary, with the ASA adding that certain personalities might be viewed as having a strong appeal to underage people even if they don’t exceed that number of followers – with the final ruling being taken on a case-by-case basis.

A direct example of this would be the ASA’s high-to-low risk criteria graph, where a “retired footballer now doing punditry/commentary” is present in both the moderate and low risk sections. Where exactly does the person stand will be assessed on the basis of their social and other media profile.

Of further note, the ASA also advises marketers to be extra careful when they’re putting themselves in a situation for which UK-specific data is inconclusive, i.e. a foreign retired footballer based abroad who is doing punditry/commentary.