Insidious horror ads shown to kids ahead of YouTube Frozen clips
- 6 years ago
LONDON — British kids were exposed to movie ads featuring a demonic monster attack ahead of videos showing Frozen and Minecraft clips.
Britain's Ad-regulator the Advertising Standards Authority said kids had been shown adverts for the new Insidious movie, the BBC reports.
Children were seeing these pre-roll ads in front of Lego how-tos, cartoons and the aforementioned Frozen and Minecraft videos.
Columbia Pictures, a Sony company, said they were targeting adult audiences with the pre-rolls and had removed children and unknown audiences from their campaign targets.
Google-owned YouTube says it lets advertisers control their campaigns and are responsible for their own content.
The ads were apparently seen between December 2017 and January 2018 by kids and some adults, who complained they were distressing.
The regulator claims it received five complaints in total. The pre-rolls for the movie, rated 15-years and older in the UK, showed women screaming, and a monster attacking a woman.
The regulator told Sony to better target it's ads in the future, but according to the BBC, an investigation by the company found it to be YouTube's algorithms to be at fault.
The BBC says in its report that it understands YouTube is "now limiting its ads for mature content to a pre-vetted list of safe YouTube channels." If true, that means less ad dollars for other creators through no fault of their own.
Britain's Ad-regulator the Advertising Standards Authority said kids had been shown adverts for the new Insidious movie, the BBC reports.
Children were seeing these pre-roll ads in front of Lego how-tos, cartoons and the aforementioned Frozen and Minecraft videos.
Columbia Pictures, a Sony company, said they were targeting adult audiences with the pre-rolls and had removed children and unknown audiences from their campaign targets.
Google-owned YouTube says it lets advertisers control their campaigns and are responsible for their own content.
The ads were apparently seen between December 2017 and January 2018 by kids and some adults, who complained they were distressing.
The regulator claims it received five complaints in total. The pre-rolls for the movie, rated 15-years and older in the UK, showed women screaming, and a monster attacking a woman.
The regulator told Sony to better target it's ads in the future, but according to the BBC, an investigation by the company found it to be YouTube's algorithms to be at fault.
The BBC says in its report that it understands YouTube is "now limiting its ads for mature content to a pre-vetted list of safe YouTube channels." If true, that means less ad dollars for other creators through no fault of their own.