Tweeting and marketing communications

In March 2012, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) investigated the marketing communications of Mars Chocolate UK Limited. This was the first investigation carried out by the ASA involving the social networking site, Twitter.

A series of tweets were posted in January 2012. They came from the official twitter accounts of Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand and model Katie Price.

Each of the stars posted five tweets within an hour. The first four tweets from Rio Ferdinand referred to his knitting hobby. Amongst other surprising statements, Rio posted “really getting into this knitting” and “can’t wait to finish that cardigan”. The first four tweets from Katie Price mentioned China’s CPD figures, the debt problems in the eurozone and the liquidity of the government bond market. The fifth and final tweets from both Rio and Katie read “you’re not you when you’re hungry @snickersUk #hungry #spon”. The final tweets also included pictures of each of them holding a Snickers chocolate bar.

Complaints were made to the ASA that challenged whether the advertisements were obviously identifiable as marketing communications under the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP Code).

Mars argued that it was only the fifth tweets that were marketing communications or, alternatively, that the series of tweets each became marketing communications only once the fifth tweets were posted. The ASA disagreed and said that each of the tweets formed part of an orchestrated marketing communication at the point that each tweet was posted.

However, the ASA did note that the first four tweets served as “teasers” to generate interest, the first four tweets did not refer to Snickers or Mars, the tweets were made in quick succession and the final tweets contained the slogan, hashtag “spon#” and depicted the celebrities with the product. The ASA concluded that these elements were sufficient enough to clarify that the tweets were indeed marketing communications. They considered it acceptable for the first four tweets to not be individually labelled as being part of the marketing communications. Therefore, the advertisements were found to have not breached the CAP Code.

On this occasion, the ASA did not find a breach of advertising legislation. However, the case serves as a reminder to promoters, who should constantly bear in mind that consumers must be made aware of when they are viewing paid-for promotional material, even when the promoters are utilising modern marketing methods such as Twitter.  This follows general advertising principles that advertisements must be clear and not misleading.