For copy advice at your fingertips, tap into the AdviceOnline database

07 September 2005

Just imagine ...

Your agency has presented an idea for an ad and you’re worried that it might break the rules on targeting children but you’re not sure exactly what those rules are.  What if you could do a quick search on the Internet for an explanation of the rules and at the same time get some examples of similar ads that have broken them?  Wouldn’t that be a quick and sure-fire way to get some piece of mind?

Or imagine ...

A client company has sent you a proposal for marketing its beauty cream and you wonder if the claims it wants to make in an ad are allowed.  What if you could get the low-down from your desktop on the types of substantiation required for health and beauty claims along with links to all the right CAP Help Notes, Code clauses and relevant ASA adjudications?

Well, with the AdviceOnline database on the CAP website, you can do those things.

The AdviceOnline database contains over 200 entries of advice on specific topics that the CAP Copy Advice team often gets asked about.  It is part of the AdviceOnline section of the CAP website.  Each entry draws together relevant CAP Help Notes, CAP Code clauses, ASA adjudications and a specially written commentary on the topic.  Although AdviceOnline draws on the non-broadcast CAP Code rules and Help Notes, the advice will often be a useful guide to what is acceptable in broadcast advertising as well.  For specific advice on broadcast ads, you should, of course, go to the BACC for TV ads and the RACC for radio ads.

If we take a look at our examples at the beginning of the article, we can see what happens when you search the database for the term “Targeting Children”.  The search returns a list of nine entries, one of which is specifically titled “Children: targetting” You can read that entry by clicking here.

Likewise, if you search the database using the term “beauty”, eight entries come up, one of which is an entry entitled “Substantiation for Health, Beauty and Slimming Claims”.  To see that entry click here.

As well as the search facility for the AdviceOnline database, the CAP website has an index of all the entries so that you can see at a glance what the database covers.  And, when it comes to one-to-one advice about your specific ad or more information about something covered in the database, nothing beats a call to the CAP Copy Advice team on 020 7494 2100.  Why wait?

Give the AdviceOnline database a go now.  Simply click here and begin searching.