The ASA also work with other regulators, such as the picture to the right. This is to help consistent regulation of advertisements, the two lead relationships being Ofcom and Trading Standards.
They also have a lot of rules considering children and food/drink advertising. Ads targeted directly at or featuring children should not contain anything that is likely to result in their physical, mental or moral harm. Some rules are:
- you must not present children in a sexual way.
- you must not publish advertisements in outdoor media where children may be exposed to it.
- you must not encourage children to copy any practise that may be unsafe.
One example of an advert that ASA have dealt with is, regarding children, American Apparel (2012), and an advert they published in Vice magazine. Two people reported the advert as offensive and irresponsible because of a picture of a girl with a sweater, socks and pants on. They claimed the company had sexualised a 'child' with this kind of image.
The response given from the company was that the model was over 18, and she was wearing clothing made for adult consumers in an adult magazine. They also pointed out that the ad had no nudity involved.
The assessment from ASA was that the picture contained no nudity, but the model did appear underage and the picture itself had sexual undertones (position of model, unsmiling expression, etc). Because of this, American Apparel had been told not to show the advert again.
Additionally, regarding food/drink advertisements, there are boundaries:
- you must not encourage excessive consumption of food or drink products.
- you must not encourage unhealthy lifestyles in children.
- you must not be misleading about the nutritional benefit of the products.
If you don't abide by these rules in advertising, there could be a rise in complaints, a loss of profit and it might even damage your business.
An example is Swizzles - a company who produce sweets and chocolate products. The ASA were informed that the company had a 'Swizzles Town', which was a virtual game where they could promote their products. They also used the character Scooby Doo to add popularity to their website. The ASA were concerned that the company was using online games, videos and featuring popular characters to promote unhealthy lifestyles for children. ASA also called Swizzle's 'irresponsible' for using a licensed character on their website.
Swizzles soon replied to the ASA, claiming the virtual Swizzles Town wasn't aimed at children entirely, but also at adults and families. They also said the website was just helping reflect the retro theme of the brand. Regarding Scooby Doo, they said that they had featured the character because of a new line of products including the character.
The ASA concluded the investigated areas of the website were breaches to the Code and rules to advertising food and to children, and were withheld.
I think the ASA's work is great, and it's good that people who make offensive or misleading content may have huge consequences. However, I also think that the ASA, or even just some of the complaints, are a little exaggerated. For instance, the American Apparrell advert. American Apparrell is a fashion store, and in their advert they featured those products - a jumper, a pair of socks and underwear. I even researched their other adverts and they are the same theme - very underdressed women, and some were even more explicit than the one reported. I think the situation was over-blown and it was published in an adult's magazine, so anyone who don't like the style should choose to ignore it.
Source: https://www.asa.org.uk/
Very detailed - and you have credited the ASA! What is your opinion on the ruling? Do you agree with American Apparel/ASA? Can you put in any examples of banned food and drinks ads?
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