London – Video bloggers are increasingly guilty of subjecting the millions of children who follow them online to covert advertising, the UK Government’s childhood tsar has warned.
Reg Bailey, who has previously carried out a review into the commercialisation of childhood for David Cameron, said “vloggers” whose YouTube clips are avidly watched by younger audiences, should face tough sanctions from advertising regulators if they break the rules.
Bailey, who is also the chief executive of Mothers’ Union, spoke out as his charity released research showing that parents are now more worried about the negative impact of advertising on their children than they were five years ago.
Bailey said: “It’s not always immediately clear that somebody is being paid to do an endorsement, and if you have children and young people who are very vulnerable to not understanding the difference between editorial and advertising, then actually that can be very misleading.”
He added: “I think it’s an area which the ASA, the Government and Ofcom have to be prepared to tackle.”
In November, the ASA criticised Phil Lester and Dan Howell, two of the UK’s most popular YouTube stars, for promoting Oreo cookies without disclosing that they were being paid by the manufacturers.
The pair’s AmazingPhil channel has more than 2.4 million subscribers.
According to the Mothers’ Union report Bye Buy Childhood, published this week, more than two-thirds of parents (68 per cent) believe that advertising seen by their children can be harmful – significantly more than in 2010, when similar research was carried out.
Lynsay Taffe, director of communications at the ASA, said: “We tightened our rules around protecting children in response to the Bailey Review on the commercialisation of childhood… We’ll continue to listen to parental and societal concerns.”
The Independent