Procter & Gamble YouTube video banned

The ad watchdog has banned a Procter & Gamble YouTube video that featured a model vlogger, for not being easily identifiable as marketing communication.

 Beauty Recommended: YouTube marketing communication by Procter & Gamble
Beauty Recommended: YouTube marketing communication by Procter & Gamble

The "easy lip makeup tutorials for winter time" video was on the Beauty Recommended YouTube channel.

It featured a vlogger talking about and using some Max Factor and other branded products.

The video description, which is viewed in full when a user clicks "show more", listed the Max Factor products and included a link to buy them. At the bottom, the text displayed the words, "Sponsored by Beauty Recommended, brought to you by Procter & Gamble."

The Advertising Standards Authority received one complaint about the video from a beauty and style blogger.

A spokesperson for P&G said the brand had used idents and text at the end of the video stating, "sponsored by Procter & Gamble", to clearly explain the videos were sponsored.

The brand also said the wording in the video description goes further than its competitors.

The ASA ruled: "We noted that the Beauty Recommended channel page gave no indication that the content was created by Procter & Gamble and that the channel title, and individual video titles, did not include any text to explain the commercial nature of the content.

"In the case of the ‘easy lip’ tutorial, we noted that it wasn’t until a viewer had selected and opened the video that text, embedded in the video, referred to Procter & Gamble."

The ASA ruled users should have been made aware of the promotional content prior to viewing, and that "sponsored by" and "brought to you by" were not clear in explaining the videos were marketing communications.

Therefore the ASA banned the ad and ruled future ads on YouTube must make "their commercial intent clear prior to consumer engagement".

This article was first published on www.campaignlive.co.uk


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