The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) recommended that Anki add an audio disclosure to the advertising for the OVERDRIVE: Fast & Furious Edition of its app-controlled cars in order to demonstrate how the product performs and that a device that was not included was necessary for the cars to operate.
Anki OVERDRIVE: Fast & Furious Edition is a racetrack with small, app-controlled cars. The set comes with magnetic track pieces, a series of guardrails, a charger and two racing cars, which are essentially mini computers that read information from the track so they know where to drive. However, in order to control the cars and start the race, players must download Anki OVERDRIVE: Fast & Furious Edition on a smart device. Without the app, the cars do not function.
To promote the product, Anki ran a 30-second television commercial that opened with a father and son in a garage. The two quickly assemble the track and sit down on plastic crates, each holding what appears to be a black remote control. As they race the cars, the boy exclaims, “No rules!” and the father equivocates, “Well …” As the commercial ends, an announcer states, “Anki OVERDRIVE—rule the road,” and a small video super appears at the bottom of the frame: “SMART DEVICE NEEDED AND NOT INCLUDED.”
Examining the product and commercial as part of its routine monitoring of advertising directed to children, CARU expressed concern with whether the ad adequately disclosed that a smart device is required to play with Anki OVERDRIVE.
The advertiser attempted to reassure the self-regulatory body, noting that the visual disclaimer was used only “in an abundance of caution” to underscore the message already delivered by the visual depiction that a mobile device is necessary to play the game.
But CARU was not persuaded. After considering the advertisement as a whole, “CARU determined that one reasonable take-away message was that the product was sold with remote control devices with which children could operate the toy when such was not the case,” according to the decision.
“While the commercial shows a visual of the father and son quickly clicking together the Anki racetrack and then sitting down to race the cars, each person holds a black plastic rectangular box in his hands,” CARU wrote. “At no point does the viewer see a close-up of this black box that would indicate that it is a phone or other smart device.”
The advertiser provided no depiction of a phone’s screen, for example, or any other feature that would indicate that the rectangular boxes are smartphones and not plastic remote controls. Further, nowhere in the ads did Anki make clear that players must download the app on a smart device and interact with it in order to drive the cars.
“Given that up until this point it has been commonplace for racetrack sets to include remote controls, it is reasonable that a child watching the referenced commercial would believe that this Product also included remotes,” CARU said.
Further, CARU found the video super was insufficient. The self-regulatory body has “consistently held that written disclosures, particularly video supers in small print and flashed at the bottom of the screen, are not understandable to children who may not be able to read and are therefore an inadequate means of conveying material facts,” CARU wrote. “Thus, CARU found that this video disclosure was not adequate in communicating that a smart device is needed to operate this Product.”
To read the National Advertising Division’s press release about the decision, click here.
Why it matters: Noting that similar toys have historically used remote controls as controllers, CARU found that the advertiser, by not depicting smart devices in the commercial, failed to demonstrate the performance and use of the product in a way that can be duplicated by a child. In addition, the video super was insufficient to convey the material disclosure that an item essential to the use of the product was not included, CARU said, advising that audio disclosures be used in the future.