Ad description
An in-game ad for the mobile game app Arthur Mystery Book, seen in August 2025. The ad featured an animated image of a woman sitting on a bed wearing lingerie. Her breasts, bottom and legs were partially obscured by three tiles that displayed a silhouette of a woman’s body. Underneath the image were three corresponding tiles that featured parts of the woman’s breasts and torso, bottom, and legs. Text stated, “Arthur Mystery Book INSTALL AND PLAY FOR FREE”.
Issue
The complainant, who believed that the ad sexualised and objectified women, challenged whether the ad was offensive and promoted a harmful gender stereotype.
Response
Person(s) unknown t/a Arthur Mystery Book did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Unity Ads, the ad network which served the ad, provided information about their terms of service, content policy, and content moderation processes. They also highlighted the role of Demand Side Platforms, which acted as intermediaries between advertisers and ad networks, and programmatically delivered ads to Unity. Although advertisers were responsible for the content of their own ads, Unity applied their own moderation process to identify and block any content that breached their policies. In light of the ASA’s investigation, they had reviewed the moderation decision for the ad and blocked it from their platform. They had also informed the Demand Side Platform that distributed the ad that it violated Unity Ads’ policies and must be blocked from further attempts at distribution.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by Persons unknown t/a Arthur Mystery Book’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that ads must not include gender stereotypes that were likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence, and must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and society.
The ad was for a jigsaw puzzle app and featured an animated image of a woman sitting on a bed, wearing lingerie, stockings and high heeled shoes. She was posed leaning forward towards the viewer, which had the effect of emphasising her breasts and torso. We considered the manner in which she was depicted was sexual, and that she appeared to have no role in an ad for a jigsaw puzzle game other than to encourage viewers to download the app through the depiction of her body in a sexual way.
Moreover, the ad included three tiles which could be used to complete the image, and a cartoon hand selecting one of the tiles, which portrayed the woman as part of a game in which the tiles could be used to complete the image of her body. We considered that because her body was depicted as being part of a game in which she was controlled by the ‘viewer’, whilst also being sexualised, the ad depicted the woman as a passive sexual object and included a harmful gender stereotype.
Because the ad objectified the woman by portraying her as a passive sexual object, we considered it was likely to cause serious offence. We also considered that it 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 Arthur Mystery Book 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. We referred the matter to CAP’s Compliance team.
