It was not irresponsible to run a horror movie trailer before a clip featuring One Direction, the advertising watchdog has ruled.
The pre-roll ad for the certificate 15 film Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension was run last October on the Daily Mail website before a video on the boy band.
A viewer complained to the Advertising Standards Authority, claiming the ad was irresponsibly targeted because it appeared before content likely to appeal to children.
The movie studio Paramount Pictures said it had instructed its ad agency to deliver the campaign to an audience aged between 15 and 24, and to ensure it would not be delivered on websites primarily targeted at children.
Paramount said the ad was likely to have appeared on the Daily Mail website because it had a high proportion of visitors within the target age range and that visitors to the website were identified from their online user profile as being aged over 15.
The Daily Mail’s publisher said it did not consider its website, which contained current affairs content, to be targeted towards children.
The ASA decided not to uphold the complaint. “We noted that the ad contained screams of a young girl who appeared to be possessed, with visuals that suggested supernatural activity and atmospheric music,” the watchdog said.
“We considered that the ad was serious in tone and that while it would not cause fear or distress to older people (including the target demographic of 15- to 24-year-olds), it was unsuitable for display before content under-15s were likely to be watching.
“We understood that Paramount Pictures utilised a targeting strategy where the ad was served on music content that had been shown to be popular with 15- to 24-year-olds. Examples of artists used to target consumers included One Direction, Beyoncé and Selena Gomez.”
The ASA acknowledged that One Direction were popular with people of various ages, including under-15s. But the watchdog considered that the Mail site contained current affairs content that was not likely to appeal to children and the ad had, therefore, “not been irresponsibly targeted” on the Daily Mail site.
