United Kingdom

A website for JAC Vapour, an e-cigarette retailer, featured a JAC Ambassador webpage with a contact form into which people could enter their details to receive a unique affiliate link and discount code. The page detailed the benefits of becoming an Ambassador, which included a cut of the value of orders placed with JAC Vapour using the affiliate link, and a 10% discount code for family and friends. The page also gave tips for sharing the affiliate link and discount code on social media. 

The ASA challenged whether the ad breached the CAP Code by irresponsibly encouraging the promotion of e-cigarettes and related components online, because unlicensed nicotine-containing e-liquids and their components could not be promoted in online media.

Magflo Ltd t/a JAC Vapour said the original intention of the JAC Ambassador programme was to enable existing JAC Vapour customers to share success stories, thereby providing smokers with information on less harmful alternatives in a manner that was responsible and consistent with public health goals. Following contact from the ASA, they had made changes to the ad to better reflect that intention.

The ASA found that the ad encouraged people to become JAC Ambassadors who in turn would promote the sale of e-cigarettes on the advertiser’s behalf on social media. The ad had the indirect effect of promoting the sale of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes and their components, which were not licensed as medicines, in online media. By encouraging people to promote the sale of such e-cigarettes on social media, the ad incited prospective affiliates to breach the Code.

The CAP Code was breached, and the ad must not appear again in the form investigated; and future marketing communications must not have the direct or indirect effect of promoting nicotine-containing e-cigarettes and their components, for example through the advertising of affiliate schemes.