Spotify advert could cause 'serious offense'

Online music service, Spotify has faced scrutiny by advertising watchdog over a promotional email containing offensive language.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint on a promotional email suggesting users listen to the Lily Allen song “F*** You”.

The email read: "Have you heard this song by Lily Allen?  Give it a try.  F*** You".

In a the ASA hearing Spotify claimed that the song, which was named by the artist, not Spotify, was not chosen to shock consumers or to drive traffic to their website by being controversial. 

They believed there was a clear difference between deliberate language use such as that and the context in which it was used in the ad. 

Spotify said while it was not ideal that the title of the song appeared at the top of the ad, it appeared alongside nine other recommendations and therefore the language was clearly used in context. 

They also argued that users had to agreed to receive the adversity and was therefore targeted and they believed that limited the potential for it to cause offence to its users. 

The ASA noted the expletive used in the ad reflected the title of a song, which we understood was recommended to users, for example, based on a user having listened to songs of a similar genre, rather than of a similar title.

In a statement the ASA wrote: “While we considered Spotify users would understand the use of ‘F*** You’ to be the title of a song, we considered recipients of e-mails from a general online music service would not expect them to include swearing. 

“We considered the use of "F***" was likely to cause serious offence to some recipients of such e-mails and therefore concluded that the ad breached the Code.”

As a result of the ruling Spotify has been asked not to release the advert again in its current form.