Ad description
A paid-for YouTube ad for The Coach, a men’s health app, seen on 12 March 2026, showed an image of a woman from behind leaning forward with her hand pressed up against a wall, whilst she looked back over her shoulder. Text alongside her stated, “IS FEMALE SQUIRTING A MYTH?”, with the word “SQUIRTING” in orange. Further text stated, “My man does things in bed that leave me speechless. I’m honestly obsessed. We’re all over each other, like, six times a day. And it’s all thanks to The Coach. Their program taught him real skills with clear, step-by-step guidance. I don’t have to fake it anymore. I actually finish first, and more than once. If you want women to feel this way about you, tap the link below. LEARN MORE”.
Issue
The complainant, who believed the ad was sexually explicit, challenged whether it was offensive in the context in which it appeared.
Response
VAM APPS Co t/a The Coach said that they had removed the ad and stopped using that creative to avoid further concern. They also said they were reviewing their internal approval processes for online advertising, including both creative review and ad placement, to help ensure future campaigns were assessed more carefully for platform and audience suitability.
They said the ad had been deployed using standard platform targeting tools and was not intended to target minors, based on the information currently available to them. They also said their current understanding was that the ad had been served to logged-in users.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that ads must not contain anything that was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.
The ad included large text that stated “IS FEMALE SQUIRTING A MYTH?”. The ASA understood that “squirting” was a slang term, sometimes referred to as ‘female ejaculation’, that described the release of fluid during sexual activity. The ad also included references to female orgasm. We considered those references were sexually explicit, and therefore the ad was likely to cause serious and widespread offence.
We understood that the ad appeared on YouTube, which we considered was likely to have broad appeal to a general audience. We noted that VAM APPS Co said that it had been served to logged-in users only and that standard targeting tools had been used. However, we considered that we had not seen evidence that demonstrated exactly how the ad had been targeted. In any case, the ad was served alongside a snooker video, which we considered to be unrelated and non-sexual in nature. Given the ad’s sexually explicit content and the likelihood it would cause serious and widespread offence, we considered it should not have appeared in that context.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 4.1 (Harm and offence).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form investigated. We told VAM APPS Co t/a The Coach to ensure that future ads did not cause serious or widespread offence, and to ensure their ads were targeted appropriately.
