Daub Ltd t/a Winkbingo.com 1 Mapp Street Belize City Belize

Date: 20 August 2008 Media: National press Sector: Leisure Agency: Spacebar Media

Ad
A national press ad, for Wink Bingo, showed a nurse celebrating next to a trolley that held various surgical instruments and a laptop computer with a screen that read "WINK BINGO WINNER".  Behind the nurse, a man with a shocked expression and holding a teddy bear was shown standing over a woman lying on a bed. Above them a sign stated "Maternity Unit".  Text at the top of the ad stated "Find the appropriate moment ...".

Issue
The ASA challenged whether the ad breached the Code by:

1. portraying gambling as taking priority over professional commitments and

2. showing gambling in a working environment.

The CAP Code:

2.2;57.4(e);57.4(t)

Response
Spacebar Media (Spacebar), on behalf of Daub Ltd, said they wanted to differentiate Wink Bingo from its competitors by being irreverent, cheeky, sassy and a bit naughty.  They said the ad, aimed at a largely female audience, did not portray the real world but showed exaggerated cartoon characters in an alternative slightly surreal, escapist world, which was a heightened fantasy situation similar to one that some of their players had experienced.

They said, in order to differentiate the scene from a real birth, they had heightened the cartoon element of the ad.  They believed the characters looked comical and unreal, and their expressions were those of a comic strip; unrealistic and out of context with their surroundings. They said they had added filter effects to the photo in order to create a "hyper-realism", surreal and exaggerated.  They said the props and wardrobe used in the ad were not authentic and the woman celebrating her win was a nurse, not a midwife, and she was wearing a dental nurses blouse and operational scrubs, which would not be seen together in the same hospital department.  They pointed out that it was possible that a midwife might be behind the screen attending to the mother-to-be.

Spacebar said their aim was to comply with the Gambling Industry Code for Socially Responsible Advertising and believed the text, "Find the appropriate moment", made clear that what was shown in the ad was highly inappropriate.  They believed it did not encourage bingo to take priority over work or professional commitments but stated that what was shown was unacceptable behaviour.

Assessment
1. & 2. Upheld
The ASA noted the CAP Code prohibited ads that condoned or featured gambling in a working environment and those that portrayed gambling as taking priority over professional commitments.  We acknowledged that the intention of the ad was to portray a real-life situation in a humorous way, but considered that the ad nonetheless showed a health-care professional ignoring a woman giving birth in order to play bingo on line.  We also considered that the text "Find the appropriate moment", together with the image, was likely to be understood to condone, rather than warn against, gambling in the work place. We did not consider the cartoon style image, or details such as the womans uniform, countered the impression that it was acceptable to gamble at work. We concluded the ad was in breach of the Code.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 2.2 (Social responsibility), 57.4 (e) and 57.4 (t) (Gambling).

Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form.  We advised Daub to seek guidance from the CAP Copy Advice team before advertising again.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)