The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned Instagram posts promoting e-cigarettes from four vaping companies, including British American Tobacco (BAT).
ASA, Great Britain's ad watchdog, ruled to ban the posts, which featured models and celebrities such as singer Lily Allen holding e-cigarettes. The advertising of these products on social media is currently prohibited.
In a statement, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said: "While the ASA ruling is great news, urgent policy change is needed from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to prevent BAT and other tobacco companies from using social media to advertise their harmful products to young people around the world."
The four vaping companies in question were BAT, Ama Vape, Attitude Vapes and Global Vaping Group.
The complaint was filed with the support of UK anti-smoking groups Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and Stopping Tobacco Organisations and Products (STOP). The complaint accuses the companies of promoting nicotine-containing e-cigarettes and featuring models who appeared to be under 25, which is prohibited under the advertising code.
In response to the complaint, BAT claimed that its online communications "aimed to impart factual information regarding products but stopped short of direct or indirect promotion". It emphasized that the Vype Instagram account in question did not allow under-18s and clearly stated its Vype e-cigarettes contained nicotine.
However, ASH chief executive Deborah Arnott argued: "The law has always been clear that any advertising of e-cigarettes online is not permitted. BAT's defence that all they were doing was providing 'information' on social media not promoting their products has been blown out of the water."
"The ASA ruling leaves no doubt that BAT's social media tactics for Vype were both irresponsible and unlawful and must never be repeated," she added. The ASA ruling ordered that the posts not appear in their current form again.
Meanwhile, Global Vaping Group accepted that its post had been "beyond purely being factual" and admitted it was unable to verify the age of a woman shown vaping while Attitude Vapes did not respond to the ASA's inquiries and was told it must do so "in future".
Ama Vape has removed its post and said it conducted a review of its other social-media content.
