UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned Floki Inu advertisements for irresponsibly exploiting consumers’ fears of missing out. The poster campaign of Floki Inu featured a cartoon dog wearing a Viking helmet, with the strapline saying “Missed Doge? Get Floki”. There was also a warning in small print stating that the value of an investment can go down as well as up.
The UK advertising watchdog highlighted that the Floki Inu, a cryptocurrency named after billionaire Elon Musk’s dog, ad campaign trivialized the risk of investment. It said the advertisement took advantage of consumers’ fear that they are missing out on the cryptocurrency boom. ASA outlined that the ad thrives on people’s lack of knowledge of the meme coin.
The agency pointed out the use of the cartoon imagery giving the impression that buying cryptocurrency was a light-hearted and trivial matter. ASA said the cartoon distracted consumers from the seriousness of a hard-core investment, that too an asset that is not regulated and very much volatile.
Floki Inu defended the ad saying the campaign primarily targeted the informed consumer to notice a new cryptocurrency opportunity. The company highlighted that the average consumer was protected by the warnings in the advertisement’s small print. However, ASA pointed out that the ad campaign was run in London’s tube network. This means the Floki Inu team targeted the general audience. The agency ruled that the size of the warning in small print compared to the campaign’s slogan showed that it was overriding impression to any commuter was imperative to buy the token to avoid losing out on profits.
ASA ruled the Floki Inu ad campaign as irresponsible as it breached the code.
