The CAP Copy Advice team provides free pre-publication advice and guidance on non-broadcast marketing communications. By getting advice before an ad appears, advertisers, agencies and media can help avoid later problems with the ASA.

The Copy Advice service is available over the phone, by e-mail or online. The team has access to the ASA database of all past decisions and responds to 90% of written enquiries within 24 hours. CAP’s AdviceOnline at www.cap.org.uk includes a regularly updated searchable database of advice for non-broadcast ads, links to previous ASA rulings and good advertising checklists.
A quarterly e-mail newsletter – Update@CAP – also provides advice on ASA decisions and information on the latest Help Notes and entries to AdviceOnline.

Poster pre-vetting
The public is more concerned about poster advertising than any other type of non-broadcast advertising media. Readers of a magazine can turn a page and unwanted direct mail can be binned but poster ads are there for everyone to see.

Poster advertisers who breach the Code on the grounds of taste and decency or social responsibility may be required by CAP to seek pre-vetting approval from Copy Advice for all poster ads for the relevant product or service for two years. CAP works with the Outdoor Advertising Association and its members to ensure that no posters from companies on the poster pre-vetting list appear without prior Copy Advice approval.

This sanction was imposed against five advertisers during the year: Stiffy’s Shots Ltd, Ann Summers Ltd, Halewood International Ltd, Beverage Brands (UK) Ltd and French Connection Group plc.

The decision to pre-vet FCUK’s posters for a second two-year period was the result of an ASA ruling against posters for the advertisers’ radio station – FCUK FM. The advertisements stated ‘FCUK FM FROM PNUK TO RCOK AND BACK. NON-STOP FNUK. FCUK FM’. The ASA concluded that the posters would cause offence because readers would interpret the FCUK-trademark as the expletive ‘fuck’.

In previous rulings, the Authority had warned the advertisers against using their trademark if it would be interpreted in this manner. The same sanction was imposed against Ann Summers after the ASA upheld complaints against two posters promoting new store openings in different parts of the UK. The first ad, which appeared in 2003, claimed ‘Lancashire hotbot’ and showed a woman in black underwear with her hands handcuffed behind her back. The ASA decided that the ad was degrading to women, offensive and unsuitable for use as a poster. The second poster, for a new Banbury store, showed a woman in underwear astride a model horse with the headline: ‘Ride a Cock Hoarse’. The ASA ruled that the use of a nursery rhyme was likely to attract the attention of children and that the advertisement was unsuitable for the medium in which it appeared.

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