Task 11: Regulatory Body

How is ASA funded?

The ASA is funded by advertisers through an arms length arrangement
that guarantees the ASAs independence.
Collected by the Advertising Standards Board of Finance (Asbof) and the
Broadcast Advertising Standards Board of Finance (Basbof), the 0.1% levy
on the cost of buying advertising space and the 0.2% levy on some direct
mail ensures the ASA is adequately funded to keep UK advertising
standards high. They also receive a small income from charging for some
seminars and premium industry advice services.
They receive no Government funding and therefore their work is free to
the tax payer.
The levy system means the ASA has the necessary resources to handle
more than 30,000 complaints each year and independently check
thousands of ads every year. In addition, the funding supports CAPs Copy
Advice service which provides pre-publication advice to advertisers,
agencies and the media.
The separate funding mechanism ensures that the ASA does not know
which advertisers choose to fund the system or the amount they
contribute.
The levy is the only part of the system that is voluntary. Advertisers can
choose to pay the levy, but they cannot choose to comply with the
Advertising Codes or the ASAs rulings.
Their financial report can be found in our Annual Report.
I found this information on the official ASA website: Home > About ASA >
Funding
https://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA/Funding.aspx
What exactly does the ASA do?
Our purpose and strategy
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UKs independent
regulator of advertising across all media.
Our purpose and ambition
Our purpose is to make advertisements responsible and our ambition is to
make every UK ad a responsible ad.
What we do is important
Were passionate about what we do because responsible advertisements
are good for people, society and advertisers.
How we make every ad a responsible ad through our strategy
ASA 5-year strategy flower large
The five strands of our strategy
1 Understanding: Well be an authority on advertising and active on issues
that cause societal concern. Well be open to calls for regulatory change,
acting purposefully and in a timely fashion, while being fair and balanced
in our assessment of the evidence and arguments
2 Support: Well provide support to advertisers to help them create
responsible ads. Well increase, improve and better target our advice and
training so every business has access to the information and support it
needs
3 Impact: Well spend more time on matters that make the biggest
difference. Focussing on our existing remit, well spend less time tackling
ads that cause little detriment to consumers or on the vulnerable. But,
where a complaint indicates that the rules have been broken, we will
always do something
4 Proactive: Well be proactive and work with others. Well use a wide
range of information to identify and tackle problems to make sure ads are
responsible, even if we havent officially received a complaint.
5 Awareness: Well increase awareness of the ASA and CAP. We will make
sure that the public, civil society and the industry know who we are and
what we can do, so they can engage with us when they need to, and have
confidence in our work.
Read our detailed strategy document, which outlines the case for change.
Our shared values are to be:
- Consistent and proportionate
- Reliable and ethical
- Fair and respectful to all
- Accessible and helpful
- Intelligent and thorough, but also timely and proportionate
- Open and accountable, acting with integrity and never being afraid to
admit when were wrong
- An excellent team, inspiring excellence in each other
Our external stakeholders will also find us:
Independent in administering the Advertising Codes
Evidence-based, targeted and consistent
Reflective of society, not a social engineer
I found this info on the official ASA website: Home > About ASA > Purpose
and Strategy
https://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA/Strategy.aspx
How does self-regulation of non-broadcast advertising work?
There are many millions of non-broadcast ads published every year in the
UK, so it would be impossible to pre-clear every one of them. For example,
there are more than 30 million press advertisements and 100 million
pieces of direct marketing every year.
However, lots of advice and guidance is available through CAP Advice and
Training. This includes free bespoke pre-publication advice from Copy
Advice and online resources that advertisers, agencies and media can use
to check the latest positions on hundreds of different advertising issues.
I found this information on the official ASA website: Home > About ASA >
About regulation (Scroll down to the Non-broadcast advertising section)
How does regulation work after an advertisement has appeared and what
sanctions can the ASA impose?
Regulation after an advertisement has appeared:
Even though many steps are taken to ensure ads are in line with the
Codes before they are aired or published, consumers have the right to
complain about ads they have seen, which they believe to be misleading,
harmful or offensive.
The ASA can act on just one complaint. We dont play a numbers game:
our concern is whether the Codes have been breached.
Sanctions:
If we have judged an ad to be in breach of the Codes, then the ad must be
withdrawn or amended. The vast majority of advertisers comply with the
ASAs rulings and they act quickly to amend or withdraw an ad that breaks
the Codes. We have a range of effective sanctions at our disposal to act
against the few who do not and ensure they comply with the rules.
I found this information on the official ASA website: Home > About ASA >
About Regulation (Scroll down to the bottom section)
https://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA/About-regulation.aspx
Complaint Example
Ad
A national press ad for Tesco, seen in October 2015, was headlined Never
pay more for your branded shop. Text below stated, If its cheaper at
Asda, Morrisons or Sainsburys, well take the money off your bill at the
till. It included an image of a character associated with a flour brand
holding an icon that carried the text Brand Guarantee.

Small print included Min. basket of 10 different products, including 1

comparable branded product. Total price of branded grocery shop
compared with Asda, Morrisons and Sainsburys and if cheaper elsewhere
the difference will be taken off your bill .
Issue
Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd, who believed the ad did not make the
minimum purchase restriction sufficiently clear, challenged whether the
claim Never pay more for your branded shop was misleading.
CAP Code (Edition 12)
3.13.33.333.9
Response
Tesco Stores Ltd believed the ad communicated the scheme clearly to
consumers and was consistent with the industrys wider approach to price
match advertising. They understood consumers were familiar with how
price match schemes worked and that a minimum spend requirement
generally applied. They believed the ad made clear that a branded shop
was made up of multiple products, which was something consumers were
also already familiar with. Tesco considered the combination of the text
and the Brand Guarantee logo communicated to consumers that the ad
related to a price match scheme for branded products in which prices
were matched against ASDA, Morrisons and Sainsburys, and that it
worked by taking money off at the till if the branded shop cost more at
Tesco.
Tesco said that of the conditions set out in the small print the first was the
minimum purchase requirement, and that was communicated in a context
in which, as above, it was clear that the scheme applied to the shop as a
whole. The first part of the small print also made clear what qualified as a
branded shop and informed consumers where they could find further
information. Tesco accepted that the minimum purchase requirement was
a condition that should be brought to consumers attention, however, they
believed it was sufficient to do so in small print, because it was not so
significant as to contradict the headline claim (but instead clarified the
nature of a branded shop). They also said the condition was of no more
importance than those such as geographical restrictions or maximum
refunds, which were typically also in small print. They said price match
schemes were usually aimed at shops that included multiple items and
that their data showed the average Brand Guarantee shop contained 24.4
items, whereas the minimum number to qualify for the match was ten.
Tesco had taken advice from the CAP Copy Advice team, who believed the
ad was likely to be acceptable in relation to the minimum purchase
requirement.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered consumers were likely to be familiar with the concept
of price match schemes, but that they would not necessarily be aware of
the conditions involved, or that there might be a minimum purchase
requirement, in particular if an ad suggested otherwise. Research data
published by the CMA (included in its July 2015 report on Pricing Practices
in the Groceries Market, produced in response to a super complaint from
Which?), indicated that of respondents who correctly understood that their
planned shop supermarket had a price matching scheme, 25% reported
that they had no idea how it worked and a further 40% had only a rough
idea. We agreed with the CMAs statement about the importance of
retailers communicating clearly with consumers to help them understand
how schemes operated and enable them to take informed decisions.
We acknowledged Tesco had consulted the Copy Advice team, whose view
was that it was likely to be acceptable to set the minimum purchase
requirement out in small print. The ad included a single brand character, a
prominent reference to the Brand Guarantee and the text branded shop.
We considered it was clear the scheme related only to branded, as
opposed to own-brand, items. However, we also considered it was not
sufficiently clear from the main body of the ad that it was necessary to
buy multiple products in order to qualify. In addition, we considered
Never pay more for your branded shop was an absolute claim that was
likely to be understood by consumers to mean that if they purchased
branded good(s), they would qualify for the price match against the
named retailers. While the small print said it was necessary to purchase at
least ten different items, including one comparable branded product, for
the Brand Guarantee to apply, we considered that contradicted the
headline claim and was not sufficiently prominent to counteract the
misleading impression created by it. We therefore concluded that the ad
was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading
advertising), 3.9 (Qualification) and 3.33 (Comparisons with identifiable
competitors).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Tesco Stores Ltd
to ensure significant conditions were made sufficiently clear in future, to
avoid being misleading.