reCAP Q2 April – June 2023
Committee of Advertising Practice
Responsible for writing and maintaining the UK Ad Codes and providing authoritative advice.
Welcome to reCAP, our quarterly round-up of work we’ve been doing over the past three months across our Compliance, Copy Advice and Regulatory Policy teams.
Guidance – Protecting Consumers and Wider Society
Avoiding Racial and Ethnic Stereotyping in Ads
The ASA has a strong track record of banning ads if they break rules prohibiting them from causing serious or widespread offence on the grounds of race or ethnic background. New guidance, published in May, sets out a detailed framework of principles describing specific types and treatments of stereotypes identified as having the potential to cause harm, and that would therefore be likely to breach rules on social responsibility.
This draws on a study conducted in 2020, when the ASA undertook further?research?to establish whether, and if so to what extent, racial and ethnic stereotypes featured in ads may contribute to real-world harms.
Mobile and Broadband – At What Cost?
Many telecoms providers include clauses in their contracts – often linked to inflation - that mean consumers’ monthly costs will increase on an annual basis by an unknown amount. Ads which create the impression that the initial stated price will remain the same throughout the contract period are likely to mislead consumers - it’s crucial to avoid this.
New guidance provides detailed information about the steps advertisers should take to ensure their ads are transparent. The guidance will take effect from?15 December 2023, following a six-month grace period to allow advertisers to make any necessary changes to their campaigns.?
Enforcement – Putting the industry on Notice
Enforcement Notices outline common clear-cut breaches and provide advice to make sure advertisers are all singing from the same song sheet, particularly where there is widespread non-compliance in a specific sector.
Vaping Products on TikTok
We know people are concerned about young people vaping and our?CEO Guy Parker?has spoken about how we’re working with platforms, other regulators and enforcement bodies to ensure young people aren’t being exposed to vape ads on TikTok and other social media.
In June, the Compliance team published this Enforcement Notice regarding Vaping Products on TikTok.
Our rules reflect the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations (TRPRs) and ads which promote unlicenced vaping products should simply not be appearing on a public TikTok account.
Flying High with the IPP Pilot
In a world first, the ASA and some of the largest companies in the digital advertising supply chain have now completed a Pilot scheme to explore formalising the way platforms cooperate with the ASA.
Participating companies agreed to volunteer information to the ASA to demonstrate how they operated in accordance with a set of Principles – you can read about them here - ‘Intermediary and Platform Principles’.?
The Pilot ran for one year from June 2022 and a final report will be published in Autumn 2023. Watch this space!
Environmental Claims – Project update
On the 23 June, CAP and BCAP published an?updated version of guidance designed to help advertisers interpret rules concerning environment-related ad issues. We have a brand-new section entitled “Claims about initiatives designed to reduce environmental impact”. This draws on principles from the Competition and Markets Authority’s?Making environmental claims on goods and services?guidance, to which marketers should have regard when making claims about initiatives designed to reduce environmental impact.
It also draws on principles established by recent ASA rulings – we have a handy summary of all the environmental-related rulings here, and it’s updated once a month.
Annual Report 2023
It’s that time again – perhaps unsurprisingly, our Annual Report comes out once a year!
So, if you’d like to learn about everything that we got up to in 2022, including case studies about our innovative work with AI, crypto ads, influencers and much, much more, check it out.
You can also get the lowdown on the most complained about ads in our 60 year history.
If you love all the stats the full version includes breakdowns of cases and complaints received by media, location, and more (shorter version here).
(#Ad) eLearning Summer Sale!
We are offering 20% off all our eLearning modules. Use the code 'SUMMER20' when buying eLearning before 5pm on 31 August. Prices vary when buying five modules or more (see our tiered pricing structure for more information).?Full terms here.
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Our eLearning modules offer flexible, remote training options to bring you up to speed on the UK advertising rules. They are written by CAP experts, offer insight into a range of topics (from social media to promotional marketing) and can be completed from the comfort of your own home.
For more training and events, see our website here.
Well, that’s it for Q2 2023 – see you in a few months for our Q3 reCAP. If you want to stay up to date, make sure you follow our page and consider subscribing to our newsletters?here.
Writer and Researcher
1 年This provides an excellent snapshot of the important work done by Committee of Advertising Practice over the last year. Love this bitesize briefing!