Coca-Cola South Pacific agreed not to broadcast the advertisement and removed from iTunes Australia an associated app, the Fanta Fruit Slam 2, after the ASB found they breached the company's own commitment not to directly target children aged under 12.

The ad and app featured "the Fanta crew" – a cast of animated characters designed to reflect high school subcultures including "a prankster", "a rocker", "a cool, confident party girl", "a true music fan" and "a mysterious duo".

In the television advertisement, the characters discussed "what their Fanta tastes like" and go into fantasy sequences including jumping into a container of orange bubbles.

The app is a game in which the characters can be manipulated to catch and throw oranges, with a thermometer of fizzy orange liquid showing the score.

The Obesity Policy Coalition, which brought the complaints, said the campaign was clearly designed to appeal to children's sense of playfulness and marketed a product that contained 12 to 14 teaspoons of sugar per 450ml bottle.

Coca-Cola agreed not to directly market to children in any media when it signed up to the Australian Food and Grocery Council's Responsible Children's Marketing Initiative.

The company originally disputed that the advertisement and app were primarily directed at children, saying that "the Fanta crew" were drawn to represent 17-year-olds and the animation was unlike that in popular children's programs such as Peppa Pig and Little Princess.

But the ASB ruled that the simplicity of the game and the depiction of teenagers playing on the beach would appeal to smaller children, particularly those approaching their teenage years.

In its ruling on the television advertisement, it said the depiction of characters hanging out in a park and likening the flavour of Fanta to an explosion of bubbles would be attractive to children aged under 12.

"In the board's view, based on their own experiences with young children and teenagers, these representations are more likely to appeal to younger children who aspire to be teenagers," it said.

A spokeswoman for Coca-Cola South Pacific said the television advertisement had not been on the air since April and even then it was not placed in programs that were directly targeted at children, but the company would not use the ad or the app in Australia in future.

"We respect and have taken on board the findings of the Advertising Standards Bureau decision, which will allow us to make positive adjustments to the campaign ongoing," she said.

"We have a longstanding policy not to direct any marketing activity from any source to children under the age of 12, and have rigorously worked to ensure we meet this commitment."

The move was a rare win for the Obesity Policy Coalition, a frequent complainant to the Advertising Standards Board.

Executive director Jane Martin said it was unethical of Coca-Cola to aggressively market its products when 25 per cent of children were overweight or obese and the company should now remove the campaign from its website.

"We know that self-regulation is becoming weaker," she said. "This is a way to make sure that children are protected."