On the 8th February, the Advertising Standards Authority did the double, publishing its first two decisions about whether gambling ads have ‘strong appeal’ to the under-18s. In the first fixture, Sky Best successfully defended its use of Micah Richards. In the second fixture, which kicked off at the same time, Paddy Power successfully demonstrated that its casting of retired footballer Peter Crouch does not give their ads strong appeal to under-18s. Both adjudications are helpful, but the Paddy Power one is a particularly useful guide to best practice for gambling advertisers as it covers a wide range of relevant considerations.

Prior to 1st October 2022, the rule for both broadcast and non-broadcast gambling advertising was that it must not have ‘particular appeal’ for the under-18s. In other words, ads must not have more appeal to the under-18s than to adults. Under the new rule, however, the ASA announced that gambling ads must not be of ‘strong appeal’ to the under-18s. This removed the comparative element of the test and raised the stakes for advertisers seeking compliance. Gambling ads must not reflect or be associated with youth culture, nor include a performer or character whose example is likely to be followed by the under-18s or have strong appeal to them.

The ASA also produced a lengthy, complicated guidance note setting out the criteria that it would apply when considering whether to raise the offside flag against an ad. The guidance requires advertisers to demonstrate that they have assessed the suitability of the people cast in their ads in advance. Advertisers must identify why these individuals are famous, outside the context of the ad itself. And they must collate the evidence of their assessment of the cast’s likely level of appeal to under-18s.

Both the Sky Bet and the Paddy Power complaints were triggered by two complaints. Were these from the same players? Only the ASA can say. But we know that two complainants cried foul about a TV ad for Paddy Power featuring their long-term brand spokesman, Peter Crouch, the 41-year-old retired Premier League and England striker. He’s also a noted choreographer, who bravely performed the unforgettable ‘Robot’ goal celebration. This dancing prowess may also explain the success of his wife, Abbey Clancy, who became Strictly Come Dancing Champion in 2013. She obviously enjoyed a home advantage, being able to train with Peter, the twinkle-toed robot.

Given the high level of concern about gambling advertising and the ASA’s usually strict application of the rules, you could have placed an accumulator (or ‘acca’ to the cognoscenti) on both the investigations leading to upheld complaints. At the end of the day, however, it’s a game of two halves, and the complainants in both investigations failed to score. The fact that Paddy Power won this tricky fixture while keeping a clean sheet is a testament to its very careful assessment of the continued suitability of Peter Crouch as its brand spokesman after the ASA sprang the offside trap by tightening its rule, as well as to the very thorough submission it made in its own defence.

It’s worth considering the various points that were raised by Paddy Power to prove why Crouchy does not have strong appeal to the under-18s, (apart from the fact that he’s old enough to be their father).

•  Peter’s Playing career

Peter enjoyed an illustrious career at the start of this century. He not only played for less fashionable clubs, such as Liverpool and Aston Villa, as well as winning 42 England caps, but he even achieved the dizzy heights of representing the mighty Tottenham Hotspur. Although at 6’7”, Peter is well accustomed to dizzying heights. From about 2011, his footballing career went into a gradual decline as he moved to Stoke City, and then to Burnley, where he only played 6 times, all of them as a substitute. He finally retired in 2019. The ASA agreed that Peter had enjoyed a long and successful career, and not just at Spurs, during which he was widely recognizable, not least because of his great height and ‘robot’ goal celebration. After 2011, however, he played for what the ASA ungraciously describe as “less popular clubs”. So by the time the ads under investigation were broadcast at Christmas 2022, he would not have been of strong appeal to the under-18s. Today’s youngsters wouldn’t remember him from his playing days, or at least not from his glory days at Spurs and England (or even at Liverpool, let alone Villa).

• Peter’s Profile on social media

Peter does not have public profiles on Facebook, TikTok or Twitch. Although he does have an Instagram profile, he hasn’t posted on it for some considerable time. Peter’s social media reticence was extremely helpful for Paddy Power. We’ve recently worked on other, confidential matters, where a performer’s social media profile has caused significant difficulties, even though the ads were not for use on social media. Peter does have a Twitter handle, and the ASA was concerned by Twitter’s use of self-verification of their age by its users, without “robust age-verification”. However, the ASA accepted that the evidence showed that only 0.46% of Peter’s 1.5 million Twitter followers were under-18. This was corroborated by interest-based data which showed that his followers were interested in “markedly adult themes” (not those adult themes) such as politics, business, finance and technology. The ASA therefore accepted that his overall social media profile was unlikely to make him of strong appeal to under-18s.

• Peter’s Punditry and Football Programmes 

Peter works as a football pundit on BT Sport and has been involved in various television programmes about football related topics, including Save Our Beautiful Game; Peter Crouch: Save Our Summer; and Crouchy’s Year-Late Euros: Live. Despite the obligatory addition of the letter ‘y’ to the end of his name in the title of one programme, the ASA agreed that those programmes were primarily aimed at adult audiences.  However, this did not rely on subjectivity, because Paddy Power produced viewing data from the Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB) to substantiate its argument.

• Peter’s Podcasting

Peter has also been something of a pioneer in the world of podcasting, hosting a football themed podcast, imaginatively entitled ‘That Peter Crouch Podcast’. Once again, Paddy Power was able to turn to the form book to prove its point, being the demographic data about Peter’s listeners. This demonstrated that “1.5% of the podcast’s Instagram followers in the previous 30 days were aged between 13 and 17 years and that 0.1% of people who had engaged with the podcast’s YouTube channel in the previous 28 days were aged between 13 and 17 years.” The data proved that Peter’s Podcast is not of strong appeal to children, so no yellow card there. Not even a foul.

• Peter’s Participation in Popular Programmes

Not long before the ads under investigation were broadcast, Peter appeared on an ITV light-entertainment show called ‘The Masked Dancer’, broadcast early on a Saturday evening. Again, Paddy Power based its arguments on the objective BARB data, avoiding a subjective discussion about the nature of the programme’s format. The BARB data suggested that as many as 8.5 million children had watched at least one of the 8 episodes in the series, and so the ASA considered it was of appeal to children, with a broad audience demographic. But when considered together with Peter’s other media appearances and his social media profile, it was unlikely that his participation in this show meant that the Paddy Power ads had a strong appeal to the under-18s.

• Peter’s Product Endorsements

The ASA accepted that Peter’s partnerships with Ted Baker, L’Oréal, Carphone Warehouse and BrewDog all had an adult appeal.

• Peter’s Publishing

Finally, Peter has also published several “autobiographical-style” books, whatever those might be, and is a columnist for the Daily Mail. The ASA believed these publications all have an adult audience. We make no comment.

Post-Match Analysis

Although the significance of this decision lies in the ASA’s analysis of the involvement of a retired footballer, it also had to consider whether the various references to Christmas in ads gave them a strong appeal to children but decided that they did not.

When I first learned of these investigations a few months ago, I was concerned that the ASA would be like one of those over enthusiastic referees reaching for the red card when officiating a match at Old Trafford, unduly influenced by the baying crowd at the Stretford End, and the angry shouting from the touchline. It is gratifying that they resisted that temptation, having used the advertising regulation equivalent of VAR to review the evidence from every angle to arrive at the right conclusion. The final score is also a tribute to the thoroughness of Paddy Power’s end-to-end approach to compliance, which started with the casting of Peter Crouch, and ended with the drafting of its submission in response to the investigation. (And the same has to be said about Sky Bet’s work with Micah Richards.) Not a speculative long-ball hoof by the goal-keeper to the big man up front, but a skilful playing of the ball out from the back, patiently building the attack through a series of one-touch passes, before slotting the ball home through the goalkeeper’s legs.

Result? Paddy Power and Sky Bet do the double. I should have placed that acca after all.

But one question remains unanswered: given that he’s 6’7”, why wasn’t Peter a goalkeeper, not a striker? With the current situation at White Hart Lane, he could still be playing in goal for Spurs, although then he definitely couldn’t be working for Paddy Power.