Asa tasksheet

Nicole MeliaBTEC Extended Diploma in Creative Media: Unit 45 Commercial Production for Radio

PR10: Regulation & Its Impact on Content

The ASA is an advertising standards authority is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. They apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice. Their work includes acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements

The UK advertising regulatory system for ASA is a mixture of self-regulation for non-broadcast advertising and co-regulation for broadcast advertising. Broadly this means that the system is paid for by the industry, which also writes the rules, but those rules are independently enforced by the ASA. For TV and radio advertising, they will regulate under a contract from Ofcom.

The industry committee that writes the codes which are followed by the ASA is CAP; The Committees of Advertising Practice, they write and maintain the UK Advertising Codes, which are administered by the Advertising Standards Authority. They also offer the industry authoritative advice and guidance on how to create campaigns that comply with the rules. Brand damage from getting your advertisement banned by the Advertising Standards Authority can be devastating. So CAP will help you to produce excellent and compelling campaigns that also comply with the rules. That’s why they are known for creating a wide range of advice services.

The UK code of broadcast advertising enforces ‘The Codes’ this means they can take steps to remove or have amended any ads that breach these rules. Below are some examples of the different rules.I have taken 2 print screens of the different codes from the official CAP website, as you can see on the left it gives you the name of what section it comes under, e.g. Number 12, Weight control and slimming and then on the right of this it tells you the description- ‘Rules for ads for weight control, slimming foodstuffs and aids, including exercise; diets, clinics and medicines’.


The professional and brand damage from getting your advertisement banned by the Advertising Standards Authority can be devastating. CAP wants you to produce an excellent and compelling campaign that obviously follows these rules. This is why they create a wide range of advice services.Below is a print screen of the different types of CAP’s advice and training they supply you with. An example of this is ‘eLearning’, as part of CAP’s commitment to increase our advice and training support to every business, we are delighted to introduce online training, giving you the opportunity to find out how to comply with particular sections of the Code from the comfort of your own desk. We will continue to grow the number of modules on offer so if you don’t see what you’re looking for right now, do check back again. The course they provide gives you a clear breakdown of rules and explanation of how and when they apply, Real life examples of complaints the ASA has received and rulings they have made, Interactive questions throughout to put learning into practice and an assessment and completion certificate. These could be used for alcohol advertising or misleading advertising.


Advertisers making a complaint about another advertiser will be required to provide evidence that they have tried to resolve their complaints with their competitor before we will agree to take on the complaint. There are 5 steps that competitors will need to follow these steps. (I have print screened them below) The process that will assist in resolving some complaints in a prompt fashion with the minimum of formality can cost for all parties.The form will ask you for information about the ad you’re complaining about, such as the name of the company or organization; the product or service being advertised and where you saw it. If you have a copy of the ad you can also attach it to the form.


Education

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