Ad description
An in-game ad for the mobile game app Animals Solitaire: Protect, seen in October 2025. The ad featured an animated image of a woman wearing a bra, shorts and stockings. She was posed directly facing the viewer with her legs spread. On-screen text read “Your wife’s away on a business trip for a month. It’s just you and your stepdaughter Fiona at home. She seems to be dropping sexual hints”. Three tiles underneath the subheading “Select a scene” contained images of the same woman in different scenarios, labelled “Fiona in the Shower”, “Fiona’s Bedroom at Night” and “With Fiona’s Best Friend”. A cartoon hand was selecting one of the tiles.
Issue
The complainant, who believed that the ad objectified women, challenged whether the ad was irresponsible, offensive and promoted a harmful gender stereotype.
Response
Person(s) unknown t/a Animals Solitaire: Protect said that the ad was intended to present a light-hearted scene from a game, and was not intended to objectify any individual or promote harmful gender stereotypes. However, they acknowledged that the ad may have been interpreted differently. They said they had stopped running the ad and would strengthen the screening of their ads to ensure they complied with different cultural standards.
Unity Ads, the network which served the ad, provided information regarding their terms of service, content policy and content moderation process. They stated that advertisers were responsible for the content of their own ads and complying with Unity Ads’ content policy, which restricted sexually explicit content. They also applied their own moderation process to identify and block content that breached their policies. In light of the ASA’s investigation they had blocked the ad from their platform.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code required that ads must not cause serious or widespread offence and must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and society. It also stated that marketing communications should not include gender stereotypes that were likely to cause harm.
The ad was for a mobile game app and featured an animated image of a woman wearing a bra, denim shorts and stockings. She was depicted sitting on a bed in a dimly lit room, with her legs spread towards the viewer. Her hand was placed on her chest and she was looking directly at the viewer. The ASA considered that the way in which the character was depicted, including her clothing and pose, was sexual in nature. The image was accompanied by text which stated, “It’s just you and your stepdaughter Fiona at home. She seems to be dropping sexual hints”. We considered this further emphasised the ad’s sexual nature, and alluded to a potentially incestuous relationship between the character and their step-parent, which was likely to cause serious offence. The ad included the option to “Select a scene” featuring the character in one of three scenarios, which were reminiscent of stereotypical pornographic tropes, and showed a cartoon hand selecting one of the options. We considered that had the effect of portraying the character as a passive sexual object, in which the ‘viewer’ could choose a sexual scenario in which to see them. We therefore considered the ad included a gender stereotype in a way which was likely to cause harm.
We acknowledged the advertiser said they had not intended the ad to objectify women. However, we considered that the ad presented the female character as a passive sexual object, and therefore considered it was likely to cause serious offence. It also included a gender stereotype in a way that was likely to cause harm. We therefore concluded the ad was irresponsible and breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility) and 4.1 and 4.9 (Harm and offence).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Person(s) unknown t/a Animals Solitaire: Protect to ensure their ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious or widespread offence, including by objectifying and sexualising women and by including a harmful gender stereotype.
