ASA Ruling on British American Tobacco UK Ltd.

Following complaints by leading health organizations, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that British American Tobacco (BAT) can no longer use any public Instagram account to promote e-cigarettes in the UK. The ruling includes BAT’s use of influencer marketing to advertise e-cigarettes and orders BAT to remove unlawful e-cigarette advertising content currently on Instagram.

UK regulations clearly prohibit online advertising of e-cigarettes, but allow a manufacturer to provide factual product information such as the name, content and price of the product on its own websites. The ASA ruling has clarified that public social media accounts, like @govype run by BAT, are not analogous to a website, and therefore, neither factual nor promotional content for e-cigarettes is permitted.

ASA Ruling on British American Tobacco UK Ltd., Internet (social networking) (2019).

  • United Kingdom
  • Dec 18, 2019
  • Advertising Standards Authority
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Parties

Plaintiff

  • Action on Smoking and Health
  • Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
  • Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products

Defendant British American Tobacco UK Ltd

Legislation Cited

Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 (TRPR)

Related Documents

Type of Litigation

Tobacco Control Topics

Substantive Issues

None

Type of Tobacco Product

"[W]e considered that material from a public Instagram account was not analogous to a retailer’s own website and that material posted from such an account was therefore subject to the prohibition on advertising of unlicensed, nicotine-containing e-cigarettes, meaning that neither promotional nor factual content was permitted. Notwithstanding the above, we considered that in any case the ads contained content which clearly went beyond the provision of factual information and was promotional in nature.... Because we considered that material distributed from a public Instagram account was not analogous to a website, meaning that neither promotional nor factual content that promoted nicotine-containing e-cigarettes was permitted, we concluded that the ads should not have appeared in that manner and therefore breached the CAP Code."