Ad description
A website for Lights Camera Bingo, www.lightscamerabingo.com, an online bingo site,seen on 26 March 2023. When consumers left the website to open another tab on an internet browser, a camera symbol and the words “Hey! Come Back!” appeared in the open tab.
Issue
The complainant, who believed the words “Hey! Come Back!” appearing to consumers who had left the website could encourage harmful gambling behaviour, challenged whether the ad was irresponsible.
Response
Jumpman Gaming Ltd t/a Lights Camera Bingo said the “Hey! Come Back” tab message replaced the name of the website which would otherwise display in the tab. They said they did not consider the message to be different to having the website name and logo visible on the tab. There was no specific call to action.
They said 5% of their customer base accessed the website on a desktop device and would see the message as a browser feature. Consumers using a mobile device would see the message if they used the Safari web browser on an iPhone. From their internal tests, the message did not appear for mobile users on the Chrome browser or when generally browsing the internet on their mobile.
Lights Camera Bingo said the intention and only purpose behind the message was to alert a customer that the website had not been closed. They should either close the tab or it reminded them that they were still logged in and should log out to close their access. Lights Camera Bingo said the display of the message was completely generic and customers were not selected in any way.
Lights Camera Bingo said they did not believe it could be claimed that the customer had left the website and had therefore intended to stop play when the website was still open in their browser. They said that as with all websites, the customer could easily close the tab if they did not wish for it to be open.
Lights Camera Bingo said there were no incentives, or rewards for the customer if they chose to revisit the website. They did not believe it portrayed, condoned or encouraged any gambling behaviour that was socially irresponsible or could lead to financial, social or emotional harm. They said there were no references within the message that could be seen as exploiting the susceptibilities of anyone - for example, there were no deadlines which would cause undue urgency. Lights Camera Bingo said they did not agree with the suggestion that an ad should not be served if an individual had left the website, in case they were vulnerable. They said emails and text messages were typically sent when the recipient was not on the website that was being advertised. They did not believe that their messaging was any more enticing than ads they saw from other gaming operators.
Lights Camera Bingo said they recognised the requirements of the CAP Code and frequently sought bespoke advice from the CAP Copy Advice service but did not for this ad, as they did not deem it necessary. They took all reasonable measures, in accordance with their license conditions, not to advertise to vulnerable customers, but they would remove the message across all their platforms.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that ads for gambling must be socially responsible and must not encourage gambling behaviour that was socially irresponsible or could lead to financial, social or emotional harm. It also said that ads must not exploit the susceptibilities of vulnerable persons.
The ASA first assessed whether the message appearing in the tab was a marketing communication for the purposes of the CAP Code. The “Hey! Come Back!” message appeared on Lights Camera Bingo’s website, which was non-paid-for space online under their control. The message was directly connected with the supply of Lights Camera Bingo’s bingo playing service, by alerting consumers to return to that web page after they had left it. We therefore considered it was a marketing communication that fell within the remit of the CAP Code.
We understood that the tab message “Hey! Come Back!” appeared when consumers who had visited the Lights Camera Bingo website opened another tab on their desktop internet browser. On a mobile device, the message “[camera symbol] Come Back!” appeared if the consumer decided to leave the Lights Camera Bingo web page and open all existing open tabs on their mobile.
While we accepted that some consumers may visit more than one website at a time and therefore have several tabs open, we considered that they may also have opened another tab because they had decided to leave the Lights Camera Bingo website. The message “Hey! Come Back!” continued to flash for the duration that the tab remained opened and disappeared only when someone clicked to close the tab or went back onto the web page. We considered in that format, consumers’ attention would be drawn to seeing the message.
We acknowledged Lights Camera Bingo’s position that the message was intended to alert consumers that they had not closed the tab or logged out of their accounts, and that it reminded them to do so. However, the message did not say “close the tab” or “log out”. We considered that by displaying a call to action to “come back”, that would be understood as an instruction, strongly encouraging consumers to return to using the website, when they had either paused their bingo play or stopped play by leaving the web page.
We accepted that displaying ads which invited someone to visit a website, or reminded them to return to a web page, such as to complete a purchase or other action that was in progress, would likely not be problematic of itself. However, we considered that such messaging, in the context of an ad for an online bingo service, could have the effect of encouraging some people to continue gambling when they would otherwise have stopped, especially as the message did not disappear until the web page was returned to. We also considered that particularly in the case of people who had a gambling problem or were recovering gambling addicts, the message could exploit the susceptibilities of vulnerable people. We did not consider that the potential impact of such messaging was any less harmful because it only appeared on devices in certain circumstances, for a section of Lights Camera Bingo’s customer base.
For those reasons, we concluded that the ad encouraged consumers to engage in gambling behaviour that could lead to financial, social or emotional harm, exploited the susceptibilities of vulnerable people, and was therefore irresponsible and breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 16.1, 16.3, 16.3.1 and 16.3.2 (Gambling).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Jumpman Gaming Ltd t/a Lights Camera Bingo to ensure their future marketing communications contained nothing that was likely to encourage irresponsible gambling behaviour that could lead to financial, social or emotional harm or exploit the susceptibilities of vulnerable people.
