Delving into our Annual Report 1970-1971 is a bit like enjoying a retrospective on a retrospective, looking back as it does on five years of achievement under the then outgoing Chairman, Lord Drumalbyn. It was clearly a year of out with the old and in with the new; the ten shilling note ceasing to be legal tender and the Royal Navy issuing the last of its grog, while 18 year-olds were allowed to vote in the General Election and page three girls appeared in The Sun newspaper for the first time.

Our reflection on five years of Lord Drumalbyn’s stewardship reveals that the Authority had established a firm foothold in the regulatory landscape. Indeed, our reputation and role appear to have expanded as we started to offer pre-publication advice to advertisers:

“Advertisers and advertising agencies, trade associations and other bodies, as well as members of the public, have come to see the Authority and the CAP Committee with their expertise of law and Code interpretation, as bodies to whom they can turn for help and guidance before they fall foul of statute or Code, and this recognition has added a new dimension to the structure as a whole. It may well be said that the Authority is now the apex of an advisory and control system for advertising.”

It still wasn’t busy. We received just 221 complaints. But we seemed particularly bowled over by the fact that “this figure is swollen by 38 complaints which were received concerning a single mail order company.”

Interestingly, we commented again on matters of offence and in particular how the images that appeared in advertising were comparatively mild compared with other media.

“There is, for instance, no real problem about nudity, which is portrayed in so many aspects in the editorial columns of the press and on cinema and TV screens that the use of the naked body in advertisements is relatively insignificant.”

Our latest wide-ranging research report, conducted on our behalf by Ipsos MORI, shows that 50 years later the public’s attitude to nudity is much the same. Our findings suggested many are not worried by the current level of sexual content and nudity in advertising, describing it as relatively inoffensive compared to other types of media.

That said, our Annual Report went on to state:

“It is in the area of suggestiveness, double meaning and smut that some advertisements affront public sensibility and, as a result, bring advertising itself into disrepute and lower its standards.”

Echoing the viewpoints held in 1970 the public fed back to us through our research that:

“Participants had concerns about sexual content and nudity in advertising, particularly where they could see no link between sex and the product being advertised.”

So, looking back reveals that while times may have changed public sensibilities towards and standards in advertising are very much the same today.

Read the 1970 - 1971 Annual report here

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