Mobile game aimed at children displays adult advert

[oni-link]

Source

The UK's advertising watchdog has intervened after an adult advert was shown within a video game app popular with children.

The pop-up ad featured a "temporary tattoo" that looked like a deep bite mark, placed on a woman's shoulder.

The imagery appeared in the match-puzzle title Simon's Cat Crunch Time in July.
Wish.com, the retailer responsible for creating the ad, failed to respond to the complaint.

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There is a picture of the advert in the article

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it was concerned by the San Francisco-based company's lack of response and ordered the business to ensure its adverts were properly targeted in the future.

Although the body does not have the power to impose fines itself, it can refer repeat offenders to Trading Standards, which can take further action.

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"We considered the app was likely to have strong appeal to children and therefore children were likely to have seen the ad," said the ASA in its ruling.

"We noted that it was not clear from the ad that the product shown was a fake tattoo and we considered that the image... which was red and bloody, might cause distress."

The authority added that Wish.com was obliged to ensure the ad was not promoted again in an untargeted manner.

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I did a search and found nothing

When you rely on algorithms then this kind of thing is bound to happen

 

[tim_mark]

Have you seen any clickbait Unity "games" from Play Store that show you 30-second video ads every 0,00001 second of gameplay?

 

[Deleted member 4021]

WTF at those teeth marks, I'm an adult and I wouldn't want to see that shit in an ad ever. I definitely wouldn't buy whatever they're selling.

 

[BGBW]

Shouldn't some blame lie with the company behind the app as well as the ones who made the ad?

But it added that it relied on customer reports to flag unsuitable content, and had not been alerted to the tattoo image before the watchdog had become involved.

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I mean, they're not even bothered to check what ads they are displaying.

 

[Ninge]

All of the advertising platforms I've used have the ability to specify the age suitability of adverts that should be served in your game/app. This sounds like they are either using a poor platform or just didn't care enough to implement a proper system!

I know from past experience that the FCC can come down pretty heavily on you if you are showing unsuitable adverts or are sharing location data for anyone under 13 with advertisers etc (even if that data is anonymised and only accurate to a zip code for eg), so this stuff tends to self regulate pretty well!

 

[Deleted member 11093]

This is pretty fucked up.

 

[Geoff]

Not great but also not worth making a fuss about. If my kids saw that I wouldn't be concerned.

 

[Bulebule]

Yeah, I don't want to see that kind of ad in any game, children's or adult's. Why would anyone want that kind of temporary tattoo anyway?

 

[oni-link]

Not great but also not worth making a fuss about. If my kids saw that I wouldn't be concerned.

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It's not the worst thing in the world but it's pretty bad when you thing about the kind of adverts that could have been shown

 

[MuchiMuchiPink]

It's not only that, but how piss-poor the security of ad networks are. Many are easy to hijack. The tracking abilities are noteworthy as well. I'm not against people earning money through their content, but this system is broken.

 

[BGBW]

Not great but also not worth making a fuss about. If my kids saw that I wouldn't be concerned.

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It's not about this particular ad per se, but the wider concern that neither the advertisers or the app developers are willing to take responsibility for the adverts they are willing to show.

 

[oni-link]

It's not about this particular ad per se, but the wider concern that neither the advertisers or the app developers are willing to take responsibility for the adverts they are willing to show.

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Yeah this is the main issue

As a side note, and I'm sure there is an element of old man yelling at cloud to this, but I feel sorry for the children of today

Many children will have their introduction to games be from shallow and exploitative mobile games with dodgy gambling mechanics and adverts jammed into them every few minutes

It makes me feel really grateful to have grown up in the mid 90s with my hand me down NES

 

[Deleted member 1378]

Here's the ad - I know it's in the article but going off the title I was expecting worse. Outside of the left image with the teeth tattoo, it's not even as bad as a Sears catalogue

It's not the worst thing in the world but it's pretty bad when you thing about the kind of adverts that could have been shown

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It's more that Wish was whitelisted because the majority of the time, they're showing shit like fidget spinners etc. Unfortunate this got through but I don't think it's a symptom of a bigger problem. We'd be hearing much, much more of these things if it were