COI seeking assurances from media owners

by Darren Davidson, Brand Republic 06-Aug-07, 16:00

LONDON - The Central Office of Information has said it will rescind a temporary ban on social media advertising once it has received assurances from media owners such as Facebook that government ads will not appear alongside contentious content.

The COI, the body that coordinates government advertising, has ordered its online media buying agency, i-level, to keep government campaigns off user-generated pages on social networking sites.

It said it will be talking to Facebook and other social networking websites in conjunction with i-level this week, in an attempt to overcome the temporary ban.

The move comes in the wake of revelations last week that brands such as Vodafone had appeared on a Facebook profile promoting the British National Party, the far-right political group.

This led to Vodafone, First Direct, Prudential's healthcare division and the AA pulling advertising on Facebook.

The COI said that when i-level makes a booking on its behalf, it expressly states that advertising should not appear on any sites that contain socially unacceptable behaviour.

However, despite this, the government body is concerned its ads will appear alongside near racist or sexist material.

Jamie Galloway, COI director of digital media, said: "Advertising has been paused temporarily on any websites that have not provided COI and i-level with the assurances our bookings require.

"COI will be talking to i-level and the respective media owners this week to review individual bookings. COI and i-level will then update and amend bookings accordingly."

Galloway said the COI is not considering removing all social media activity indefinitely.

Last year, the COI spent £10.4m online and between 2006-2007 increased its digital media spend by 85%.