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The Advertising Standards Agency has issued a warning to Paramount after ads for horror flick Paranormal Activity appeared in family-friendly mobile games.
The ASA received complaints that a trailer for the 15-rated movie aired in both Angry Birds and Draw Something, ad were told the scenes were likely to cause fear or distress in young children, according to Brand Republic.
Paramount has been warned that it should make sure agencies buying ad space to promote its films take the context of the ad space into account in future.
Scenes from the Paramount Activity 4 trailer include an invisible force dragging someone across the room, and a shadowy figure appearing in a young woman’s room.
Angry Birds owner Rovio identified the company that has served the ad as Millenial Media and removed the trailer from the game.
Millenial apologised to Rovio, attributing the blunder to human error and pledged to instigate new safeguards to prevent another incident.
Zynga also removed the ad from Draw Something when it received complaints from users and alerted its media agency MEC Global.
Paramount Pictures UK defended itself by claiming it had instructed MEC to buy ad space aimed at 15 to 24-year-olds. MEC purchased this space with Odyssey Mobile, which put together an ad package encompassing several apps, including Angry Birds and Draw Something.
