Advertising standards - ASA.

What is the ASA?

The Advertising Standards Authority is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. 

What is the ASA's role?

The ASA apply the Advertising Codes, these are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice. The work involved in this includes acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements.

What does the ASA do?

They work in media and take claims and complaints about advertisements.

Why does it have to do it?

To stop people from being offended by every advert.

CAP code:

An advert might be banned because of number 10 - Prohibited categories, this could be because a product was shown from another company, which isn't allowed to be shown on the television. Another advert could be banned for another reason, like number 6 - Privacy. This could be because if an advert is filmed on the street and a member of the public is filmed without permission, then viewers can complain about it and the advert would have to be banned. It would have led to being banned because the person in the advert may have complained a number of times, and then if that didn't work, they would take the company to court for not following the CAP code.

 

For example, the pot noodle advert was nearly aired on television, but was banned at the last minute because of a swear word that they used at the end. This would come under number 4 - harm and offence. The word "slag" could cause offence to a number of people, especially if they feel strongly about the word not being on the advert.

Another example would be the Toyota advert. The screenshots below explained what happened within the advert. This would come under number 20 of the CAP code - Motoring, the advert was banned because the advert represented reckless driving and the people who complained may have thought that Toyota was encouraging reckless driving and also encouraging people to sing with their eyes closed whilst driving, which could lead to an accident happening.

Another example would be the Morrison's advert, this was banned because 11 people complained and the viewers may have felt like the company was promoting unhealthy eating amongst children, which would come under number 13 of the CAP code.

Overall, I think that we need the ASA because if we didn't have it, then viewers would complain and be offended about every advert that would be shown on television. If we didn't have the ASA, there would be more adverts being shown in between shows which could cause more offence to the viewers.