ASA action
Each year, the UK public sees many millions of ads, direct marketing and digital communications about products, services, charities, causes and awareness campaigns. The vast majority of these are responsible and comply with the existing advertising rules.
Last year we dealt with 31,458 complaints and assessed thoroughly every one of those concerns, investigating the ads that seemed to breach the rules.
As a result, nearly 4,591 ads were changed or withdrawn in 2011, thanks to a range of effective sanctions at our disposal and the cooperation of advertisers who respect our decisions.
ASA adjudications provide important guidance to advertisers on how the Codes are to be interpreted. They act as a transparent record of our policy for consumers, media, government, industry and society at large on what is and isn’t acceptable in advertising. We publish our rulings every Wednesday in this section. Use our search to find rulings from the past five years.
The vast majority of advertisers and broadcasters comply with ASA rulings, however for the small minority who don’t, there are consequences. The main aim of the system is to bring about compliance with the Advertising Codes, rather than punish advertisers. However, some of the sanctions at our disposal can be very detrimental to those advertisers that choose not to comply.
We do not just wait for complaints – we proactively check to see that the Advertising Codes as well as our rulings are adhered to, for example by seeing if any necessary changes have been made to advertisements. We also routinely monitor the media to make sure the Codes are being observed to protect consumers and fair competition. Read more about our monitoring compliance team.
