The ASA homework due 13/01/16

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) is one of the major media regulators. It regulates adverts across UK T.V’s it receives and deals with the complaints made by the public about a T.V advert that seem unsuitable for a number of reasons (IE an advert has racism in it and must be taken down for ethical reasons).

While the ASA gets these complaints, it can’t punish the people responsible for making the advert. All it can do is post on their official website about the advert then take it to Ofcom (Office of communications). So in that sense the ASA is very limited in what it can do.

All adverts aired on T.V must follow the set of rules that the ASA has placed on them.  And require them to not be misleading, harmful or offensive. However charity and public service adverts have more scope to use powerful or upsetting images in order to get a certain message across, but there is a limit to what they can show. The ASA expects advertisers to follow these set of principles:

.Marketing communications must not contain anything that would cause serious or widespread offence.

. Adverts directly aimed at children (or featuring) must not contain anything that would result in their physical, mental or moral distress.

. Marketing communications must not cause distress or fear amongst the public without a justifiable reason. If it can be justified, the fear or distress must not be excessive. Plus marketers should not use a shocking claim or image for the sake of attention.

Overall the ASA is rather restricted in what in can do online, that it can’t punish advertisers directly and can only deal with complaints. However, they have a strong set of rules that can allow charity advert get their message across without causing distress to the public.