By Jeremy Lee, Marketing, 25 November 2008, 09:00am

Why Ant & Dec's Sainsbury's ads will be running in their hit show

LONDON - Brands including Sainsbury's, Nintendo and Kit Kat are excluding themselves from advertising in and around hit programmes watched by millions of their target audiences by including celebrities from the shows in the ads.

Most notable is Sainsbury's decision to cast Ant & Dec in cameo roles, alongside Jamie Oliver, in its Christmas campaign.

The Advertising Standard Association's Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) codes point out that in order to maintain a distinction between programmes and advertisements, ads that feature a personality or performer who takes a leading role in a programme must not be scheduled in or around that programme. Ant & Dec are, of course, the host of I'm a Celebrity....Get Me Out of Here!, which is stripped throughout ITV1's schedule in peak for an entire month in the run up to Christmas.

The popular appeal of I'm A Celeb shows no sign of abating with audiences reaching 7.6m on Sunday's show beating BBC1's drama Survivors.

X Factor is similarly out of bounds for Kit Kat Senses, which features the band Girls Aloud in its ads, because one of its members - Cheryl Cole - is a judge. Similarly Nintendo too has found some of its ads precluded from some coverage of the reality series as one of the hosts of the hit ITV show is a presenter. The show on Saturday had a peak audience of 12.2m.