Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
An in-game ad for the mobile app game Surprise Onet – Match Game, seen in the mobile app games Candy Crush Soda Edition and The Walking Dead No Man’s Land, in September 2024 featured an animated image of a female character wearing a t-shirt and hot pants-style shorts sitting with her legs spread open facing the camera, with her hand placed on her crotch. The space between her legs was partially covered by tiles with animated images on them, and an on-screen hand was tapping one of the tiles. Text stated, “Find them all and unlock the full picture”.
Issue
The complainants, who believed that the ad was sexualised and objectified women, challenged whether the ad:
- was irresponsible, harmful and offensive; and
- had been irresponsibly targeted.
Response
1. & 2. Guangzhou Shimo Culture Media Co Ltd t/a Surprise Onet – Match Game did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
King, the developer of the game “Candy Crush Soda Edition”, said the ad appeared in their game through a third-party advertising network. They had protections in place that, among other restrictions, required all adult and explicit ads to be blocked from appearing in their games. They were reliant on ad networks and advertisers correctly identifying their content, as it was not possible, or industry practice to review every ad. They understood that occasionally ads got miscategorised by ad networks or bad actors and got past those blocks, but they tried to report and block problematic ads to ensure that ads were served in the right way. They took action to block not only the current ad, but all ads for the advertiser’s product from advertising in their games. They were not aware of any other complaints made directly to them about the ad.
Deca, the developer of the game “The Walking Dead No Man’s Land”, said that on receiving notification of the complaint they conducted an internal review and took immediate action to block the advertiser. They said the ad was managed and selected by Unity Technologies (Unity Ads) who were an independent third-party provider. They said they did not select or approve individual ads displayed within the game, but they had set general preferences, such as blocking certain categories of ads, and sexually explicit content should be prohibited by default. They had also contacted the ad network Unity Ads to emphasise the importance of ensuring that all ads complied with the CAP Code requirements, particularly concerning social responsibility and harm and offence. They also requested that Unity Ads review their processes to prevent similar ads appearing in future. They had not received any direct complaints from viewers regarding the ad.
Unity Ads, the ad network which served the ad seen in “The Walking Dead No Man’s Land” game provided information on their terms of service, content policy restrictions and moderation process. They said ad content was ultimately the responsibility of each advertiser, and respective publisher, however for additional protection, they voluntarily applied their own moderation process to ads uploaded to their network. They had reviewed the moderation decision in light of the ASA investigation and blocked the ad from their platform.
They were further reviewing their moderation systems and processes as they related to sexualised content and harmful gender stereotypes.Apple said they had alerted their app review team to investigate the app for compliance with their App Review Guidelines. If the investigation indicated a breach of those guidelines (which included prohibitions against content that may not be age appropriate for the app’s rating), they would work with the app to address the concern.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by Guangzhou Shimo Culture Media Co Ltd’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 respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
1. Upheld
The ad featured an image of an animated female character facing the camera wearing hot pants-style shorts and a cropped t-shirt. The character’s hair was tousled over her face and her mouth was open in a sexually suggestive way. She was sitting on the ground, leant back with her legs parted open facing the camera. Although tiles with animated images of lampshades, American footballs and timers partially covered the space between her legs, one of her hands could be seen placed on her crotch. We considered that the way she was depicted, including her clothing, facial expression and pose, which alluded to masturbation, was overtly sexual in nature and likely to cause serious offence. The ad showed an on-screen hand selecting a tile with text which stated, “Find them all and unlock the full picture” implying that removing the tiles would reveal more of the lower part of the female characters body, which was the focus of the image.
We considered that portraying the female character in that way, for no other reason than to promote an online game, objectified her by presenting her as a sexual object with the sole purpose of titillating viewers.Because we considered the ad was objectifying and overtly sexual, we further considered it was likely to cause serious and widespread offence and included a gender stereotype in a way that was likely to cause harm. We therefore concluded that the ad was irresponsible and breached the Code.
On that point the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility), 4.1 and 4.9 (Harm and offence).
2. Upheld
We considered that, because the ad was objectifying and irresponsible and likely to cause serious or widespread offence, it was not suitable to be featured in any game, regardless of whether the advertiser had taken steps to target it away from specific audiences.We understood that the advertised game “Surprise Onet – Match Game” included gameplay similar to that depicted in the ad and had an age rating of 17+. The ad, which was played on an iPhone was seen in the Candy Crush Soda Edition game which was rated aged 4+ in the Apply App Store.
Notwithstanding the above, we therefore expected Guangzhou Shimo Culture Media Co to have targeted any ad for the game responsibly, including limiting the audience to users aged 18 years and over. This should have been achieved using age verification measures including interest-based targeting factors that described an adult audience and excluded a child audience.
We considered that consumers playing Candy Crush would not expect to be served an ad for a game which featured adult sexual content. Because the advertiser had not provided us with evidence that they had taken appropriate action to minimise the risk of under-18s being served the ad, we concluded that the ad had been irresponsibly targeted.
On that point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.3 (Social responsibility).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained about. We told Guangzhou Shimo Culture Media Co Ltd t/a Surprise Onet – Match Game to ensure their ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious or widespread offence, including by objectifying and sexualising women and featuring a harmful gender stereotype. We also told them to ensure that their ads were responsibly targeted. We referred the matter to CAP's Compliance team.
