I newspaper rapped for “no celeb gossip” ad claim
The Independent’s sister daily newspaper i has had a “misleading” TV ad banned by the advertising regulator because it claimed the title does not feature celebrity gossip.
The Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint challenging the ad’s claim, voiced by former ITV I’m a Celebrity contestant Dom Joly, that i contains “no celeb gossip nonsense” was misleading because the newspaper runs a daily Caught and Social column.
The column features stories about celebrities and includes sections entitled OMG, Scene & Heard, iquote and ichat that quote celebrities and provide information about where they have been spotted.
The ASA said readers would interpret such stories as celebrity gossip and concluded that the advert was misleading.
In response to the adjudication Independent News and Media said its celebrity stories differ from celebrity gossip because, “unlike other newspapers”, they were based on factual content and not hearsay.
The TV ad must not appear again in its current form and the ASA has told the Independent not to use the claim “no celeb gossip nonsense” in the future.
