The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2024
Viagogo's ticket 'guides' on NME banned — they hid the resale bans
Viagogo's NME 'guides' to Hyde Park and Taylor Swift tickets omitted one detail — those events ban resale tickets.
Viagogo · 2024-01
What happened
Two advertorials on nme.com promoted Viagogo's secondary marketplace. On 16 June 2023, 'The best gigs to see this summer at Hyde Park' listed five BST Hyde Park shows — Blackpink, Bruce Springsteen, Pink, Guns N' Roses and Lana Del Rey — each ending 'Fans can buy and sell tickets for [artist] at global marketplace, viagogo, here'. On 20 July 2023, 'A beginners guide to getting Taylor Swift Eras tour tickets' advised fans to use marketplaces like Viagogo and claimed 'All viagogo orders come with a 100 percent customer guarantee… fans get in the door or their money back'.
Viagogo denied the ads were misleading: the tickets were legitimately available on its marketplace, no law prohibited resale, and nothing implied it was an official primary outlet. It said fewer than 1% of customers were refused entry and argued its 2018 CMA Enforcement Order applied only to its website, not to external advertising.
On 10 January 2024 the ASA upheld the complaint. Both events' official terms and conditions prohibited resale tickets except through official fan-to-fan exchanges, so tickets bought via Viagogo risked refusal of entry — material information the ads omitted, likely to affect purchase decisions. The ads breached CAP rules 3.1 and 3.3 and must not appear again in that form.
Why it happened
- The event terms banned resale — the 'guides' never mentioned the very risk they were steering readers into.
- 'Fans get in the door or their money back' — a guarantee that reads differently once entry itself is the disputed part.
- Advertorials on a music site wore journalism's clothes: 'guides' that ended in a buy link.
- Viagogo was already under a CMA enforcement order — the ASA added its own ruling on top.
The lesson
An advertorial must not omit what makes its product risky: Viagogo's NME 'guides' never mentioned that Hyde Park and Eras tour terms ban resale — the ASA banned the ads.
Aftermath
The ASA ruled the ads must not appear again and told Viagogo not to omit material information about entry restrictions on tickets purchased through secondary ticketing sites.
Sources
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
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