Wink Bingo released a series of online bingo TV adverts a few months ago, they were humorous in the most part and we see them aired for quite a while on our TV’s and in magazines. The ASA have however just canned one of their adverts, citing the fact that the advert  condoned or featured gambling in a working environment and this goes against the CAP code. 

Space bar media responded on behalf of Daub Ltd, owners of Wink Bingo saying, “The ad, was aimed at a largely female audience, did not portray the real world but showed exaggerated cartoon characters in an alternative slightly surreal, escapist world, which was a heightened fantasy situation similar to one that some of their players had experienced. They said, in order to differentiate the scene from a real birth, they had heightened the cartoon element of the ad.  They believed the characters looked comical and unreal, and their expressions were those of a comic strip; unrealistic and out of context with their surroundings. They said they had added filter effects to the photo in order to create a "hyper-realism", surreal and exaggerated.

I have seen the ad in question a fair few times and yes it was a humorous ad, but from the outside looking in I did find it in slightly poor taste, although the caption of the advert was “find the appropriate moment” which is suppose what the ad was trying to dictate, as in reverse psychology, meaning yes the woman was dressed to look like a nurse or midwife, who was playing bingo at work, so the words find the appropriate moment meant, to do exactly that and find the right moment to play bingo as in not at work.

All this fuss over an online bingo advert does seem a bit surreal, but the ASA was put there for a reason as are the CPA codes of practice on advertising and on this occasion they found the Wink Bingo advert to be in breach of these codes, therefore Wink Bingo are not allowed to air this particular advert again on the TV.