UK Advertising Watchdog Bans Sponsored Youtube Video
While the title is a tad sensationalist and click-bait, it is still true and something to be taken seriously. According to The Fast Company, the UK advertising watchdog Advertising Standards Authority banned a video on Youtube by a makeup tutorial channel. While I couldn’t find a link to the video, or the channel specifically, you can safely assume the video was removed video Youtube’s DMCA tool.
The reason I’m writing this post isn’t necessarily due to the takedown, it is due to the reasoning. The video was sponsored by the british brand Max Factor (owned by Procter & Gamble), and while it was made clear at the start of the video that the channel was owned by Procter & Gamble, the ASA want Youtube to make it more clear to the viewer before they even click on the video that the video is purely sponsored content. I’m not sure how this is going to be done, but this will affect a lot of companies, since any company making videos to promote their own products would fall under this category.
To make it clear, the ASA stated that content just being sponsored, say like us doing a review that had an ad for MSI in it, is fine and does not need this all to be made clear. But it does set a precedent for future content from manufacturers, something I’m not overly keen on personally.
Let me know what you think in the comments down below, does this affect you at all? Do you even care? Let me know!
