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Advertising Regulations - ASA Report

ASA website

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) gives advertising codes, which advertisers must follow. The work that the ASA do includes acting on complaints and to check the media to take action against offensive advertisements. The purpose of this is to make advertisements responsible. 

CAP Code

All advertisers, agencies and media must follow this code. The Advertising Standards Authority can take steps to remove or have amended any ads that don’t obey these rules. There are about 35 CAP codes.

Examples of CAP codes

Alcohol is one of the 35 codes. It is stated that the rules are designed to protect under 18s and the wider population.

Another code is competition. It states that the rules about fair and clear about administration of competitions.

Children are another CAP code and include rules about unsafe practices and unfair pressure; pester power and sales promotions for children.

Bans & Complaints

So how have some Christmas ads led to complaints?  Most commonly, the ASA receives complaints about Christmas ads on the grounds of religious offence.  For example, a poster displayed in the run up to Christmas, for the morning-after pill, which stated “Immaculate contraception? If only” was banned by the ASA because it considered that using a pun based on a fundamental Catholic belief was likely to cause serious or widespread offence in the context of an ad for contraception (Schering Health Care Ltd, 22 December 2004).

It is not just religious portrayals that can lead to complaints.  A TV ad by the supermarket chain ASDA, which stated “Behind every great Christmas there’s mum, and behind mum there’s Asda”, drew a large number of complaints that it was offensive and sexist because it reinforced outdated stereotypes of men and women in the home.  The ASA did not uphold the complaints because it considered that the ad simply reflected Asda’s view of the Christmas experience for a significant number of their customers, rather than condoning or encouraging harmful discriminatory behaviour (Asda Stores Ltd, 30 January 2013).

Not all references to Christian beliefs or practices are likely to be problematic though.  While a  Christmas-themed ad referring to "all our stupid songs" prompted complaints that it was likely to cause offence because it mocked carol singing, an element of Christian worship; the ASA noted that the activity was a part of British Christmas tradition, followed by both Christians and non-Christians alike, and didn’t breach the Code (Kentucky Fried Chicken (Great Britain) Ltd, 5 March 2014). 

 Examples of Adverts that have been banned…

  

An example of an advert that has been banned is the Iron Bru Advert 2013. The advert was banned, as there were 176 complaints of the ad being offensive, inappropriate, sexist, demeaning to women and unsuitable for children to see.

The Burger King Advert 2010 was banned due to false advertisement. Viewers had noticed that the burger sold in the Burger King stores were smaller than the one shown in the advert. ASA went to Burger King and found out that the viewers were correct so this advert was banned due to it being misleading.

The Paddy Power Advert 2010 was banned due to the fact that it was seen as offensive to blind people and was seen to encourage animal cruelty.

Why do we need ASA?

I think  adverts should be regulated as if they weren’t people would be able to lie and make false claims. Also children may see or hear something inappropriate. Some adverts may even cause offense to different races or cultures etc. Due to this I think that we do need ASA because when inappropriate adverts are made ASA have the ability to ban these. If there were no regulations / ASA then people would be free to use whatever language they want, they would be free to lie and make false claims and also they could offend anyone.