The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint against Gala Interactive over an advert for galaspins.com.
The advert
The ad, which was for the Britain’s Got Talent Slingo game, featured a man playing games on his tablet, before spinning plates with his fingers with the tagline “see if you’ve got talent…”.Gala made it clear that the phrase was in reference to the competition, not the game, and claimed that, in this case, the word talent actually meant having fun, like those who were watching the plate spinner were.The plate spinning was also be said to be a reference to the slots game in question, and to the slogan “Spincredible”.The ASA were not convinced, however, and ruled that the ad, in context, suggested a level of skill could be used to win what is entirely a game of chance.
Other complaints
The ASA themselves have been spinning a fair few plates recently, as there were also investigations after complaints against Betfair and PlayOJO.Betfair had two adverts that were claimed to show someone who appeared to be under the age of 25.However, Betfair claimed that no style, dress, or look of the person suggested a clear age demographic, and provided ID verification to show the person was 27.The complaint against PlayOJO was over an advert featuring an alpaca, that appeared to suggest gambling could help with depression and other personal issues.PlayOJO argued that the alpaca in the advert was not lonely or sad, and had no professional or educational issues, and that it was simply happy to have discovered the brand.The complaints against PlayOJO and Betfair were both thrown out by the ASA, who agreed with the arguments put forward by the two operators in question.