Floki Inu, the meme-coin cryptocurrency, had its advertisement poster banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for playing on consumers’ lack of knowledge and underplaying the risks of an investment in digital currencies, the Standard reported.
The poster, displayed on the tube across the London Underground in November, had the slogan “Missed Doge, Get Floki” and depicted a cartoon dog wearing a Viking hat.
“We acknowledged that the image of a cartoon dog wearing a Viking helmet was Floki Inu’s corporate logo and appreciated that some cryptocurrencies had their origins in humour and memes.
“Nevertheless, in the context of an ad that was promoting cryptocurrency, especially one that was presented specifically to play on consumer’s concerns of not missing out on the next cryptocurrency to sharply appreciate in value, we considered that the use of cartoon imagery gave the impression that purchasing cryptocurrency was a light-hearted and trivial matter,” the ASA commented.
Floki, which was named after Elon Musk’s dog Floki, argued many cryptos originate from memes and it was unsure how this trivialised crypto.
The advert did state “your investment may go down as well as up in value - cryptocurrency is not regulated in the UK,” but this was in a small text.