Advertising Standards Agency Research
1. The ASA is the Advertising Standards Agency, it is the independent UK regulator of advertising across all aspects of the media.
2. The ASA applies Advertising Codes written by the Committees of Advertising Practice. Their work includes dealing with complaints and actively keeping an eye on the media to take action against any misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements.
3. The mission for the ASA is to ensure that advertising in all aspects of the media are legal, honest, and truthful and provide a benefit of consumers, business and society. They aim to achieve this mission by improved their regulation for advertisements; making successes of regulating online ads, playing a large role in responding to issues shown to be affected by advertising. They are also striving to be more efficient and in tune with the consumers, business and society.
4. The ASA is not funded by the government and is free to the taxpayer; they are funded by advertisers through arrangements that guarantee their independence. The ASA is adequately funded to keep UK advertising standards at a high. They also receive some income from charging for the seminars and premium industry advice services which creates a small additional amount of funds.
5. The UK Advertising Codes lay down rules for advertisers, agencies and media owners to follow. These include general rules that state advertising must be taken responsibly, must not mislead, or offend anyone. They also provide specific rules that cover advertising to children and ads for specific sectors like alcohol, gambling, motoring, health and financial products.
6. Key Principles from the Broadcast code of Advertising consist of a wide range of criteria’s including Compliance, offence, privacy, Political advertising, environmental claims, children, Financial products, charities, gambling, lotteries, alcohol, motoring etc. These principles and the others found on the website are there because they provide a set of standards, rules and regulations which make the ASA more secure and independent. All of these principles are also there to reinforce the reason complaints are made from ordinary people that view adverts that may deem to be harmful or offensive.
7. Before deciding to investigate, the ASA check before any complaints are analysed whether or not the advertisement or institution breached one or more of the codes. From time to time they receive multiple complaints about a specific group of advertiser, this happens regularly for the ASA because their mission was extended further online to cover marketing communications on company websites. They deal with all of the complaints they get and conduct investigations when complaints become regular and pointed toward a specific advertising agency.
8. Adverts can be deemed controversial due to many themes and goals attempted to achieve from their advertisement. For example, if a TV advert for an upcoming TV series included a lot of violence or sexual content during the daytime and before the 9 o clock watershed then there will be many complaints from parents of children that may have viewed the advert. I personally feel that the advert concerning the blind in the football game is more light hearted than many members of the public took it. The advert was not supposed/meant to be offensive or encourage animal cruelty.
9. An advert that can start off with causing controversy would be the Burger King ‘Super Seven Incher’, it wasn’t the slogan that caused the most controversy but the image that went with it was of a woman with her mouth open ready to eat the burger, however the way in which this is displayed was viewed very inappropriate and offensive to a lot of viewers. I personally think the message was not controversial but the image needed to be changed so that there were no misinterpretations. Another advert
An agency set up to entice advertisers to buy space in British newspapers should probably know what kind of ads is acceptable for publication. In 2004, several papers ran an ad that was supposed to attract fashion advertisers to want to do business with the dailies. It showed a large stiletto heel impaling a tiny businessman through the stomach. The image isn't too graphic compared to violence on TV, but readers were disturbed. The image also offended many men because it encourages violence towards them by men, however I do not think the public would be this easily encouraged by the image and it is not as controversial as initially thought.
In 2005, Microsoft made a "Jump In" ad for their Xbox 360 console that never aired. The ad, deemed too controversial, showed commuters on a subway platform playing "shoot ‘em up" with their fingers, this raised immediate concerns due to an encouragement that these video games are encouraging violence. I think this should have been aired but slightly cut and edited.
10. Although I made a trailer I was thinking about producing an advert and there were definitely things that I could have kept in mind if I was going to produce one. I would need to consider many key categories and areas that I should be careful not to offend, like genders, male and females need equality in the advert and no obvious separation should be encouraged then complaints would be imminent. I must also consider the issues of sexual orientation and not to cause offense to them. I must also not include too much violence, or to such a degree that people find offensive watching, as well as encouraging violence as well.
