Clearly (not) identifiable – The recognisability of gambling content marketing

Social media marketing is evolving rapidly, with content marketing emerging as a prominent technique. Content marketing blurs the lines between content and advertising and aims to foster enduring positive relationships between brand and consumer. For gambling products, approximately 40–50% of social media adverts are content marketing. International advertising codes stipulate that advertising must be obviously identifiable as such. However, it remains unclear whether gambling content marketing is identifiable to children and young adults who are particularly vulnerable to wide ranging gambling harms. An online experiment with over 650 participants aged 11-78 investigates whether consumers in different age groups can recognise content marketing as advertising. The two main results are that firstly, children and young adults show significantly lower recognition rates for social media gambling adverts than older adults. Secondly, irrespective of age, content marketing is challenging to identify compared to conventional adverts. Recognition levels for gambling content marketing are around chance for children and young adults, while only slightly above for older adults. Yet gambling content marketing continues to appear in social media. The findings underscore the deficiencies in current advertising regulations. Other countries have banned gambling advertising completely. The authors recommend that GB regulators consider either banning gambling operators from using content marketing or stipulating mandatory inclusion of conspicuous “This is gambling advertising” labels. The authors also recommend the expansion of advertising literacy education in schools and third sector gambling education programmes. These measures would enhance consumer protection from gambling harms in the ever-evolving landscape of social media marketing.