A Twitter promotion by Nike to publicise its ‘Make It Count’ campaign has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority.
The watchdog upheld a complaint that tweets from Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshere, both sponsored by Nike, where not obviously identifiable as marketing communications.
Nike said Rooney and Wilshere were communicating to Twitter members who had chosen to ‘follow’ them, that both footballers were well known for being sponsored by the brand and that the pair’s Twitter followers would not be misled about the relationship between them and Nike.
Nike added the tweets could be viewed as marketing communications because of the presence of Nike’s web address within the body of the tweets along with the brand’s campaign strapline, #makeitcount.
The ASA concluded that the Nike reference was not prominent, consumers would not have already been aware of the #makeitcount campaign and that not all Twitter users would be aware of the footballers’ and their teams’ sponsorship deals with Nike.
In a statement, the ASA said: “We considered there was nothing obvious in the tweets to indicate they were Nike marketing communications.
“In the absence of such an indication, for example #ad, we considered the tweets were not obviously identifiable as Nike marketing communications and therefore concluded they breached the Committee of Advertising Practice code.”
