Advertising Standards Authority (United Kingdom)

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The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is a UK advertising industry organization; a non-governmental organization that takes on voluntary commitments and is therefore unable to interpret or enforce any laws. However, their Code of Advertising Practices, in many cases, largely reflects the legislation. The ASA is not funded by the UK government, it is funded by a levy on the advertisements. In Germany this would correspond to the German Advertising Council , or in Austria the Austrian Advertising Council .

United Kingdom Advertising Standards Authority logo

tasks

The organization's job, sometimes referred to as a “watchdog” in the newspapers, is to “regulate the content of advertising, promotions and direct marketing in the UK” by investigating complaints and deciding whether or not they are Corresponds to advertising standards. The Codes provide that before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must provide documentary evidence to demonstrate any direct or implicit allegations that can be objectively substantiated and that "no marketing communication should be misleading or misleading by inaccuracy, ambiguity, Exaggeration, omission or otherwise becomes possible ”. The ASA also restricted ads with scantily clad women.

The area of ​​responsibility for advertising control extends from print media to radio offers, the Internet and direct marketing. The ASA also monitors short-term promotions such as offers or sales. Control of radio advertising was transferred from the state to the ASA in 2004.

As a rule, only advertisements that have been placed or published in the last three months are taken into account, although there are some exceptions to this rule in cases where the complainant could not have known that the advertisement was misleading at the time of its appearance , e.g. B. an advertisement for a long-term investment.

organization

In 1961 the Advertising Association (comparable to the Central Association of the German Advertising Industry ) founded the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), which shortly thereafter developed the so-called “Code of Advertising Practice” (“CAP Code”). In 1962, the industry set up the Advertising Standards Authority , although it is not a common authority due to its private-sector nature . It is only supposed to decide on complaints, investigate and assess advertising violations of the new code. In order to avoid conflicts of interest, the ASA works under a chairmanship that is independent of industry and advertising.

Guy Parker has headed the Advertising Standards Authority since 2009.

financing

The Broadcast Advertising Standards Board of Finance (BASBOF) levies a voluntary fee on published advertising, usually 0.1% on display advertising (e.g. 0.1% of the cost of placing a television advertisement). The funds are forwarded anonymously to the ASA. This is to ensure that the organization does not know who contributed to its funding and to avoid doubts about the independent decisions of the ASA.

Special choices

  • The 2004 advertising claim made by the computer company Apple to sell the Power Mac G5 as the “fastest personal computer in the world” was classified as misleading.
  • In August 2008, the offense was taken by an advertisement by Apple, which promised access to the “entire Internet” with the iPhone . According to the ASA, this is misleading because the iPhone can neither handle Adobe Flash nor Java and is therefore not able to display "all parts of the internet".
  • However, there was no objection to an advertisement by the atheist group Atheist Bus Campaign , which questioned the existence of God: “There is probably no God”. Christian groups tried in vain to appeal to the rules of the ASA (CAP) to complain.
  • The claims of the French cosmetics manufacturer L'Oréal that their mascara product had a similar effect on natural eyelashes as the appearance of their current advertising medium, actress Penélope Cruz , were criticized by the ASA as being exaggerated.
  • Two later advertisements from the manufacturer were objected to and banned in 2011 after Scottish Liberal Democrat politician Jo Swinson filed complaints about advertisements for Foundation products made by L'Oréal . The advertisements published for the company's own brands Lancôme and Maybelline , which featured the faces of actress Julia Roberts and supermodel Christy Turlington , found that the images were not representative of the results that these products can actually achieve. ASA confirmed that without the help of before and after footage, both ads are misleading and prohibit future publication.
  • In September 2011, the ASA opened a formal investigation by TripAdvisor after receiving a complaint from UK consumer protection firm KwikChex and two hotels that Trip Advisors' claims to provide trustworthy and honest reviews of travelers were false. The ASA stated that TripAdvisor "should not claim or imply that all reviews are from real travelers or that they are honest, genuine or trustworthy". TripAdvisor has been instructed to remove the slogan “Reviews you can trust” from its UK website. The hotel review section's slogan has been changed to “Reviews from our community”.
  • Nestlé can no longer claim that they market their baby milk “ethically and responsibly”. Evidence presented by the International Baby Food Action Network supports this approach by the ASA, which also noted that Nestlé "went too far".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Close-up: Confident Parker settles into the ASA hot seat on Campaign of July 17, 2009
  2. ^ ASA Slams Apple on Mac Ad Claims in Technewsworld from June 11, 2004
  3. ↑ ASA: iPhone advertising for "the whole Internet" is misleading on fscklog from August 27, 2008 (German)
  4. ↑ Atheist 'there's probably no God' campaign did NOT breach advertising code, rules watchdog in Daily Mail of January 21, 2009
  5. ↑ Israeli tourism posters banned by watchdog over controversial map in The Guardian of July 15, 2009
  6. ^ L'Oreal rapped over Penelope Cruz mascara ads , Reuters report from July 25, 2007
  7. ↑ About Face: Lancôme's Airbrushed Makeup Ads Banned in the UK in The National Law Review of August 21, 2011
  8. ↑ TripAdvisor faces ASA investigation after review complaints by Mark Sweney in The Guardian dated September 2, 2011
  9. ^ Nestlé loses ASA battle in Marketingweek February 4, 1999

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