Advertising Standards ASA

Advertising Standards ASA

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UK's independent regulator of advertising throughout the media industry.

The ASA gather feedback from viewers, who have written complaints about certain advertisements. Which they then act upon and find out if the individual ad is suitable or not; judging on the issues of it being harmful, offensive or misleading.

This is to enforce the protection of the public, to set boundaries for the marketing of products and to maintain a suitable standard throughout the media industry.

If the ASA judge an ad to be in breach of the UK Advertising Codes, it must be withdrawn or amended and the promoter must not use the approach again.

 In 2012 the Advertising Standards Authority considered 31,298 complaints about 18,990 cases. They actively checked thousands of ads. Their work led to 3,700 ads being altered or withdrawn.

The ASA purpose and strategy "Our purpose is to make advertisements responsible and our ambition is to make every UK ad a responsible ad."

How the ASA make every ad a responsible ad through our strategy

The ASA apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice.

Since 1961, the ASA and CAP have been protecting consumers and promoting responsible advertising. Through the long period of time they have worked hard to respond to changes in society and advertising practice.

The Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) write and maintain the UK’s Advertising Codes, which are implemented by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). They also offer the industry influential advice and guidance on how to create campaigns that comply with the rules.

The CAP UK’s Advertising Codes produce rules for advertisers, organizations and media titleholders to follow.

They include general instructions that state, ‘advertising must be responsible, must not mislead, or offend and specific rules that cover advertising to children and ads for specific sectors like alcohol, gambling, motoring, health and financial products.’

The CAP's codes must be followed by all advertisers, agencies and media.

The Code is imposed by the Advertising Standards Authority, who can take steps to remove or have corrected any ads that breach these rules.

Burger King - 2010

This advert portrays a middle class working man who has rented a room in a motel; there is a sign displaying ‘Motel’ in the first shot, which signifies that the ad is set in America.

The advert also portrays the man paranoid by locking the front door, shutting the curtains and acting suspicious. The man then sits next to the bed with two product placements, a burger and a Burger King drink; which is a new burger from Burger King.

The man then bites into it and then something bangs on the door repeatedly. A cow then breaks down the door. The burger is a chicken burger and not originally beef; which is supposedly centered on the idea of the advert.

This is then portrayed as the humor of the advert with the tag line as ‘So good you’ll cheat on beef’.

The Advert had two viewers that objected to the advert with the opinion of the ad being misleading with the belief that the chicken burger was sold smaller than the one shown in the ad.

The complaint was upheld after the ASA traveled to Burger King and purchased some of the burgers.

The ASA then photographed them in the hands of an regular sized man for comparison and discovered the burgers were undeniably smaller than advertised.

Paddy Power (Blind Football) - 2010

This Advert portrays a various amount of men playing blind football. A cat manages to make it onto the pitch and gets kicked by a footballer. This was to represent humor in the advert.

After that a man approaches the footballer, and informs him of the terms of the gambling corporation.

There had been 1,313 viewers that complained about the ad, with the imagery of a cat being kicked across a pitch by a blind football player was offensive to blind people and could encourage animal cruelty.

The ASA judged the ad and thought it was unlikely to encourage or condone cruelty to animals or cause serious or widespread offence.

VIP Electronic Cigarettes (Must Have Ltd) - 2014

This advert portrays a women speaking to the camera with the use of sexual language through the duration of the advert. The end of the advert then acknowledges you of what the advert was actually about.

The ASA received over 1,156 complaints about the TV ads and YouTube videos for e-cigarettes, one featuring a woman talking directly to camera, that the use of sexual innuendo was offensive because it was inappropriate for children.

It had the effect of glamourizing smoking, and was sexist and degrading. The ASA upheld the complaints about the scheduling of the ad, and has scheduled it to 11 pm showing restriction; for it would have been more appropriate. The ASA however didn't uphold the complaints that the ads were harmful or offensive.

Do we really need the ASA? What might happen without it?

I consider the fact that we do need the services of ASA.

Without the Advertising Standards Authority, adverts would not be regulated there for any corporation’s marketing could use offensive or inappropriate imagery and dialogue.

This could lead to children viewing and hearing certain themes that aren't suitable for their age group. Age groups are also a central element of benefiting from regulations, because of rules that the ASA’s set out for the public eye.

If adverts weren't regulated they would cause offense to adults as well as children, from different categories of individuals including: Ethnic groups, Religion, Gender and sexuality; this is classed as Discrimination.

Without any regulations for advertising, corporations could also use fake information and fake statics, which would be the use of misleading the audience. This would be referred to ‘conning’, which is also illegal.

Regulating products for advertising would also be one of the central elements of benefiting the public eye, so that unhealthy products would not influence customers and convince them into buying self-harming products; such-as: Cigarettes & Alcohol.

The ideal rule which applies to all advertisements is, that an advert should be Legal, Descent, honest and Truthful.