This was the first time that advertisements – and the claims they made - were subject to any form of formal regulation. When commercial radio was launched in 1973, they too were subject to statutory control. In 1961, the Advertising Association, following discussions with other industry associations, agreed that it was important that advertisements were welcomed and trusted by consumers in non-broadcast media too. As a result, the industry (agencies, media and advertisers) came together to form the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and produced the first edition of the British Code of Advertising Practice. The industry’s actions meant that an official report on Consumer Protection by the Molony Committee, published that same year, rejected the case for an American-style Federal Trade Commission to regulate advertising by statute: "We are satisfied that the wider problem of advertising ought to be, and can be, tackled by effectively applied voluntary controls. We stress, however, that our conclusion depends on the satisfactory working of the new scheme, and in particular on the continued quality and independence of the Authority at its pinnacle.” Molo Committee In 1962, CAP established the ASA as the independent adjudicator under the newly created Code. The Authority was set up to supervise the working of the new self- regulatory system in the public interest. 1974 onwards - Introduction of the levy In 1973, the Minister for Consumer Protection, Shirley Williams, criticised the system for not being well-known enough. In response, the industry set up the Advertising Standards Board of Finance (Asbof) in 1974 to provide sufficient and secure funding for the system through a levy of 0.1% on advertising space costs. Because the ASA is not responsible for collecting the levy itself, its independence is assured. The levy also provides enough funding for the ASA to promote itself to the public. 1988 onwards - Legal backstop In 1988, the introduction of the Control of Misleading Advertisements Regulations provided the ASA with legal backing from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). These regulations enabled the ASA, for the first time, to refer advertisers who made persistent misleading claims and refused to co-operate with the self- regulatory system to the OFT for legal action. The ASA still has the ability to refer advertisers to the OFT for unfair or misleading advertising, but today we would refer under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008, which replaced the Control of Misleading Advertisements Regulations 1988. Referral to the OFT remains a last resort and is rarely needed: the overwhelming majority of advertisers work within the system. 2004 onwards - Becoming the one-stop shop In 2004, after more than forty years of successful self-regulation of non-broadcast ads, the ASA/CAP system assumed responsibility for TV and radio ads. The newly-formed communications regulator, Ofcom, took the decision, in a move supported by Parliament, to contract-out responsibility for broadcast (TV and radio) advertising to the ASA system in a co-regulatory partnership. The co-regulatory agreement created for the first time in the UK a single regulator for advertising – a one-stop shop for advertising complaints. To create the one-stop shop, broadcast equivalents of the non-broadcast institutions (ASA/ CAP/ Asbof) were established. A new industry committee, the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice, was created to write and maintain the Broadcast Advertising Codes. The Broadcast Advertising Standards Board of Finance (Basbof) was established to collect the 0.1% levy on broadcast advertising space costs and an ASA (Broadcast) was launched to administer the Codes. Although there are various constituent parts, the system runs as a single advertising regulator. This is particularly important for members of the public who want a complaints system that’s easy to navigate. From under 100 complaints in its first year of operation, the ASA now receives over 30,000 complaints a year. This is mainly due to the fact that the one-stop shop ASA is well known; has a much b
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 18:43:16 +0000
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