ASA Role and Purpose The Advertising Standards Authority

ASA

Role and Purpose The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. With regulations, they also apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP). Their role is to "regulate the content of advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing in the UK" by investigating "complaints made about ads, sales promotions or direct marketing", and deciding whether such advertising complies with its advertising standards codes. The codes boil down to "before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove all claims, whether direct or implied, that are capable of objective substantiation" and that "no marketing communication should mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise".

Legal Powers Legal Power – (law) the right and power to interpret and apply the law. In their position, the Advertising Standards Association is a non-statutory organisation and so cannot interpret or enforce legislation and laws, nor is the ASA funded by the British government, but by a levy on the advertising industry. “Although the CAP Code is not statutory and neither CAP nor the ASA interprets the law, the self-regulatory system dovetails with law enforcement bodies and operates within an over-arching legal framework. The Code complements, reflects and, where appropriate, may go beyond the law. ” and “The Code merely reminds marketers that they have primary responsibility for ensuring that their marketing communications are legal and should not incite anyone to break the law.

Media Aspects Covered The Advertising Standards Association cover the media aspects of advertising sectors, including such as Print Media, Broadcast Media, Direct marketing (such as, Leaflets, brochures, catalogues, etc. ) Internet Marketing, Sales Promotions (BOGOF offers, discount offers, lotteries, etc. ) and Limited Time advertising, all throughout the different medias in the United Kingdom from newspapers to television.

Case Study The Advertising Standards Association have dealt with some interesting rulings when it comes advertising of a product, service or organisation/company, some noteworthy rulings to be known of are some of the following. Apple Inc. were involved in two different rulings by the ASA. In 2004, their first involvement was due to its claim of “the worlds fastest personal computer” with its Power Mac G 5 PC system, being judged as not valid or genuine. The 2 nd ruling was in 2008, with a more, significant effect on the adverting; with an advertisement for the i. Phone was banned due to the inclusion of false claims that it could access “all of the Internet”, with the reason being that the device had a huge lack in plug-in support, especially with the major ones that were prominent at the time, for example, Flash Player. An another example of interesting rulings, and definitely a more interesting one, was in 2009, the ‘Atheist Bus Campaign’ was put foword by the ASA after different Religious groups, for example, Christian Voice, had complained that the advertising broke the code on grounds of ‘substantiation and truthfulness’, the ASA later on said that the advertising did not breach advertising code, or mislead consumers, thus not leading into an investigation launch. "The ASA council concluded that the ad was an expression of the advertiser's opinion and that the claims in it were not capable of objective substantiation, although the ASA acknowledges that the content of the ad would be at odds with the beliefs of many, it concluded that it was unlikely to mislead or to cause serious or widespread offence. "

Controversies In 2013, the Advertising Standards Association was caught in the action of complaints from the UK public calling to an advertisement of Marmite. The advertisement in question parodies Animal Rescue Units travelling around the UK, with the parody unit recovering ‘neglected’ jars of Marmite, left at the back of cupboards with voiceover as the parody moves on. The advertisement in questioned received 504 official complaints to the ASA, some complaints claiming that the advert is ‘deeply offensive’, due to it ‘trivialising’ the work of both animal welfare charities and child protection agencies, with other complaints complaining that the advertisement was unsuitable to be seen by children, with it possibly causing distress to people who had been victims of abuse. When the ASA looked into the complaints in regards to the advertisement, it was decided there was no grounds for further action and that an investigation would not be launched. In a statement, the ASA says that, while some viewers may find theme and style of the ads distasteful, most would recognise the ads were a spoof. “They were unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence or to be irresponsible and were unlikely to cause undue fear or distress to young viewers. They were lighthearted in tone and did not trivialise issues of abuse or denigrate the work of child animal protection services. ”

Impact on the Production of a Media Product With the inclusion of codes to follow and understand, alongside a council there to deal with complaints and launch investigations, it puts advertising companies in the position to really know what they should include and what shouldn’t be included, with slip-ups or misinformation being detrimental to the company financially, alongside public audience trust and respect.