Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
(a) An Instagram post from the account of TV personality Ercan Ramadan @ercan_ram, seen on 3 October 2024, featured a video of a wedding group. The video began with a close up shot of Ercan Ramadan, the groom, lighting a cigar. The camera zoomed out to show seven groomsmen standing behind the bridal couple. Each groomsman was either holding or puffing on a cigar. The caption stated, “La Familia [black heart emoji] Groom & Groomsman suited by @endrickclothing [smoke emoji]”. The post was authored by “ercan_ram and 2 others”.
(b) The same video was posted on the Instagram account of Ercan Ramadan’s wife, TV personality Vicky Pattison, @vickypattison, seen on 11 October 2024.
Issue
The ASA received two complaints:
- Both complainants, who believed the video in ads (a) and (b) glamourised smoking, challenged whether the ads were irresponsible.
- One of the complainants also challenged whether ad (a) was obviously identifiable as a marketing communication.
Response
1. & 2. Ercan Ramadan and Endrick Clothing did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Vicky Pattison did not provide a substantive response to the ASA’s enquiries on point 1. However, she confirmed that any of her posts that featured Endrick Clothing would be labelled as ads in future.Instagram said they had no comments on point 1, but if the complainants believed the ad was in violation of their policies, they could report it to them via their standard reporting channels.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The ASA was concerned by Endrick Clothing and Ercan Ramadan’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay).
We reminded them of their responsibility to provide a substantive response to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society. The video began with a close up shot of Ercan Ramadan, the central figure and bridegroom, lighting a cigar. He continued to smoke the cigar throughout the video. The seven groomsmen surrounding him were either smoking cigars or holding them; only the bride did not smoke. The characters did not speak or engage in any other activity.
While we acknowledged the ad was for menswear products, we considered that the ad’s principal focus was on smoking and that it was depicted as an enjoyable group activity. We considered that the use of slow motion, the formal setting and the jazz-style music added to the stylised and aspirational tone.
We considered that the video presented smoking in an appealing manner and suggested that it was part of a glamourous and aspirational lifestyle.
For that reason, we concluded that the ads were irresponsible.
On that point, the ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.3 (Social responsibility).
2. Upheld
The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such, and that they must make clear their commercial intent if that was not obvious from the context. We understood that Ercan Ramadan was a director of Endrick Clothing. The post, which featured groom and groomsmen’s outfits by Endrick Clothing, therefore promoted his own brand. Because the post was in non-paid for space under Ercan Ramadan’s control, and was directly connected to the sale of goods, we concluded that it was a marketing communication that fell within the ASA’s remit.Although we acknowledged that Ercan Ramadan stated in the caption “Groom & Groomsman suited by @endrickclothing”, we considered that this did not make sufficiently clear the connection between Ercan Ramadan and Endrick Clothing and that viewers would not necessarily understand that Ercan Ramadan was promoting his own brand. We therefore considered the commercial intent of the ad was unclear, and that the post needed to have included a prominent label upfront, identifying it as an ad, which it did not have.
On that basis we concluded that the ad was not obviously identifiable as a marketing communication and as such breached the Code.
On that point, ad (a) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 2.1 and 2.3 (Recognition of marketing communications)
Action
The ads must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Endrick Clothing Ltd and Ercan Ramadan to ensure that future ads were socially responsible, in particular by not condoning or encouraging smoking. We also told them to ensure their future ads were obviously identifiable as marketing communications and the commercial intent was made clear, and that identifiers such as “#ad” were clearly and prominently displayed.
