By Lauren Mattera
June 21 – Nike has become the first United Kingdom company to have a Twitter campaign banned following tweets from leading English footballers Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshere which were deemed as breaching advertising rules.
Both Rooney and Wilshere (pictured bottom, right and left) have been banned from advertising tweets after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received complaints when the players used their Twitter accounts to promote the sports brand, for which they are both ambassadors.
Manchester United striker Rooney tweeted (pictured below): “My resolution – to start the year as a champion, and finish it as a champion…#makeitcount gonike.me/makeitcount”.
Arsenal midfielder Wilshere tweeted shortly afterwards: “In 2012, I will come back for my club – and be ready for my country. #makeitcount.gonike.me/Makeitcount”.
The tweets, which contained references to Nike’s #makeitcount campaign were posted back in January this year, and sparked the complaint questioning whether they were obviously identifiable as marketing communications.
The sports apparel, accessories and equipment giant, which pays top athletes in many sports to use and promote their products, defended itself, saying that tweets should be viewed in the context in which they appear and highlighted the fact that Twitter was a more direct channel of communication between two parties compared to traditional media.
Nike added that England stars Rooney and Wilshere were communicating to Twitter members who had chosen to “follow” them and both they, and the teams they play for, were well-known for being sponsored by the brand.
Nike argued, therefore, that the players’ Twitter followers would not be misled about the relationship between the parties.
To support their case, the company highlighted the fact that the Nike URL was used in the body of the text in each tweet, insisting that this could be seen impartially as a clear marketing strategy to drive followers to the Nike website.
Following this, they presented tweets from the footballers that did not contain the Nike URL and said it was clear which were either adverting or personal tweets.
Despite this, the ASA watchdog found against Nike and ruled that the brand reference was not prominent and could be missed, concluding that there was no obvious indications that the tweets were Nike marketing communications, such as “#ad”.
It also ruled that not all Twitter users would be aware of the footballers’ and their teams’ sponsorship deal with Nike.
Both footballers have been banned from repeating messages in the same form and Nike has been warned to ensure all future advertising is easily identified.
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