Concerns of vape website appealing to minors dismissed by Ad Standards

Ashley Regan
By Ashley Regan | 12 January 2023
 
Credit: Quinten de Graaf via Unsplash

Australia's advertising complaints adjudicator Ad Standards has dismissed a case that e-liquid retailer Sydney Vape Co's website appeals to minors, despite the use of bright colours and animals.

The Ad Standards Community Panel found the website to not breach Section 2 of the AANA Code of Ethics, since the concerns relating to the legality of the products purchased by young people do not fall within the provisions of the Code.

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Sydney Vape Co home page.

The complaint submitted to Ad Standards:

"Overall, we submit that if a child or minor was exposed to the website in question, it may lead to the purchase of an e-cigarette product due to the combination of the captions, images, colours and absence of adequate identification measures to ensure that the purchaser is 18+ years of age.

"With reference to the above images we submit that the: - image captions do not provide enough information to show that the products advertised are eliquids, which may lead to confusion for minors; - images use bright colours and animal names (Monkey) that may appeal to minors, and contain foods that are popular with children, such as biscuits, desserts and milkshakes.; - captions associated with the images directly reference “chocolate biscuits”, chocolate, flavoured milk and “dessert”, which are foods/drinks that may appeal to minors."

Comments the advertiser made in response:

"Considering all the products on our site are intended for adults, only sold to adults and behind an age gate before entering and a payment solution that does not allow under 18s to have an account."

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Age gate on Sydney Vape Co website.

The advertiser continues: "The usage of colours is to easily distinguish between our different flavours as user experience is important to us.

"As an adult, I personally enjoy bright colours and all of the above foods and it is a reflection of my colourful self on to my brand. The imagery usage on each of our flavours is to make it as obvious as possible visually what the flavours contain. It is not intended to appeal to children, it is visually designed in a way to easily distinguish between our multiple flavours with ease when navigating our website."

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Sydney Vape Co online products.

In response, the Ad Standards Panel said: "although some of the product descriptions and illustrations may be attractive to children, in the context of advertising on an aggregated website it does not target to children and therefore not contrary to prevailing community standards on health and safety.

"The Panel considered that the advertisement did not contain material contrary to Prevailing Community Standards on health and safety and determined that it did not breach Section 2.6 of the Code."

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