Case Study of Existing Advertising Campaigns researching the role and impact of - Adverting Standards
Authority (ASA) and Ofcom
What is the Background of the ASA?
Advertisements first started broadcasting in 1955 and from there the ASA ( Advertising Standards Authority) was created in 1961 to protect the audience, from anything that may cause offence to them in advertisements and this was also applied to other media such as radio shows. Also in 1961 discussions with other industries such as advertising association which is focused on protecting the audience and making sure the right rules are applied and in the end came to an agreement that the consumers of non - broadcast media could be trusted as well. Also from this the industry ( advertisers) all came together to create CAP ( Committee of Advertising Practice) and shortly after that the first edition of The British code of Advertising Practice was put in place, which meant the protection of audiences in advertisements.
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What is the role of the ASA in the regulation of advertisements?
The role of the ASA when it comes to the regulation of advertisements is to act on any complaints made about a certain media e.g. such as either misleading or harmful adverts that have affected the audience. If an advert has breached the UK advertising codes, then it would be taken away or the advertisers would have to fix the problem and approach what their promoting in a different way, that cause less of an offence. The UK's regulator system is a combination of two things, one being the self-regulation for non-broadcasting advertising and the other one the co-regulation for broadcast advertising. These two things are paid by the industry, who writes what the rules are, but the rules are enforced by the ASA. When it comes to TV and radio advertising, it all comes under a contract with Ofcom and also from the commitment of the industries (advertisers,media) they are able to produce truthful,legal,honest and decent advertisements.
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What is the legal standing of the ASA in relation to Ofcom?
In November 2004 the ASA took control of the responsibility to maintain the standards of broadcast advertising in the UK, but are regulated by Ofcom to make sure that the ASA are following the correct rules that apply to British broadcasting. Also in 2004 Ofcom created a co-relationship with ASA, which then lead onto all types of media e.g radio, banners, TV, posters etc to be decided by one single organisation. But, this still means that the ASA have control over the system of daily advertisements, but overall Ofcom are still in charge of the original code. Advertisers who break the rules get their advertisements removed and have a chance to fix the problems, but if there is still no change the advert gets taking down completely.
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What are the procedures of the organisation?
When it comes to making a complaint the first thing you have to do is check if ASA covers your complaint and then from there you make your complaint either online via email or a letter and from there you are a assigned a person who will look into your complaint. They can mainly resolve the complaints at a decent speed if it is a simple matter, but if the complaint is more serious it will have to be looked into further by the ASA council. If it leads to this the advertisers need to provide justifications for themselves, as to why they thought the content was appropriate in the advert. The ASA takes in all the information that they receive and collect the facts before the ASA council makes the decision of if the advertising codes have been breached. To show the complainer and the advertiser that the ASA are doing the decision fairly, they have access to the independent review procedure and can see a review of the ruling. The ASA also regulate ads by checking the ads in media and sometimes conducts questionnaires of advertisements published.
http://www.asa.org.uk/Consumers/How-to-complain.aspx
http://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA/About-regulation.aspx
Children advertisement
In this advert, it starts of with a family having breakfast and then they all separately begin to talk about their plans for the day. The youngest boy begins first, having a camera shot at 0:03 of his bowl, which has three Bittersweet biscuits inside. At the end of the advert, at 0:54 it implies to the audience that Weetabix can get you through the day as the graphics say " Fuel for Big Days" and also on the packaging it says " slow release energy" and this is main reason why complaints were made against the advert. The audience believed that this advert was giving the wrong impression, due to them knowing that Weetabix has a high GI( glycemic index) rating. Also even though it isn't mentioned in the ASA feedback on the complaint, it can also be taken into consideration that the advert is implying that you should eat more than one Weetabix biscuit as at 0:03 and 0:17, there is about three biscuits the bowls, which even though breakfast is an important meal of the day, the advertisers still should of took into to consideration that it can show big portions, which then goes against the ASA rulings. When it came to the ASA looking into the complaints, they mainly looked into the GI of Weetabix with milk, which then led onto the ASA doing surveys to see how the audience eats Weetabix and then after that further research was done into the health side of it, which resulted in the advert being upheld due when eaten with semi-skimmed milk, it had a GI of 41-47, which is a low range and also when Weetabix is eaten with whole milk it still had a low GI. The ASA told Weetabix that they are not allowed to broadcast there advert again until they show more clearly that slow release energy keeps you going.
Confectionery advert
This advert has a animation style and is based of the animation film "Father Christmas". The advert shows him after delivered the presents around the world. He arrives back home where he finds a KitKat bar, where the advert is stating at 0:25 visually and through the voice over that KitKats only have 107 calories. Overall this advert only received two complaints due to the advert implying that it's a healthy snack just because it only has 107 calories and not much information is provided other than that, which has led to the member of the audience to complain about how they are not advertising KitKats being high in fat and sugar. The other complaint was based upon the advert directly advertising it to children due to Santa being shown in the advert, which breached the rules of food advertising as children look up to Santa and could put the wrong message across to them, being that after working hard you deserve something sweet. From this I would take in to consideration, for when it comes to my advert, that if I was to use a image of a character my audience related too, I would portray them in the best way with the product and make sure that all the information is there. In the end the ASA decided to upheld the advert as the KitKat was compared to mince pies at 0:17 and gave the impression that they are bad for you and low in energy and that they also decided that even though Santa is an iconic image for Christmas for children, the ad was not directly aimed towards them as at 0:28 we see Santa taking more of an adult relaxation approach. After this the ASA decided that this advert was never meant for broadcast again.
Children advertisement
This advert is a trailer of the film Transformers: revenge of the fallen. The content in this trailer mainly consists of explosions and the destruction of cities and navy ships at 0:41. This ad received 9 complaints due to it being showed at inappropriate times and channels that are aimed towards children, as one of the complaints to the ASA said that it was broadcast on the Cartoonito channel, which is aimed at pre-school children. This advert is rather inappropriate for children as at 0:46 we see the sinking of battle ships. at 0:51 the destruction of a home and at 0:53 we see a larger robot transforming into a car. All of these parts of the trailer can cause harm to a child's welfare and depending on how young they are, it might make them think that this is really happening in the world, making them become frightened, as at a young age children shouldn't be exposed to such rough violence. The ASA did further research into the channels that this ad had been broadcast on and told the advertisers, that they had breached one of their rules of broadcasting such content on childrens channel and they had removed the targeted children after they had seen the complaints. In the end this advert was upheld due to the breach of broadcasting and causing harm to young children, even though the ad did no contain any scenes of death or blood, it still had a good amount of violence used through out it such as at 1:05.
http://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA/About-regulation.aspx
What are the key parts of the code governing food and soft drink advertising and children and advertising that you think will be important to bare in mind for your advert?
When it comes to my advert I will have to take into consideration that the content included does not encourage a unhealthy lifestyle and portray bad manners. Also during the advert there mustn't be a large consumption of food shown at this would indicate to the audience that eating a lot of food is good for you, when in reality it isn't and would give out a poor message to the children which would then lead to parents complaining about it. Another important matter would be that the advertisement needs to be honest with the audience, as it can't come across as misleading e.g. saying that a drink contains non artificial flavors, but when you purchase the product it actually does include artificial flavors, giving of the wrong impression to the audience and tricking them into buying your product. Also another thing that I would have to bare in mind is that, if children would be shown in my advert, that they have appropriate dialogue and acting, as it could lead to in direct messages if not approached properly. When it comes to my advertisement I will make sure, that I will include the appropriate information and content, so that it doesn't cause any harm of offensive to the audience.
TV Advertising case studies
This video is based around Dans story, where he begins to talk about living with autism and how it has affected him and those around him. Dans story has been animated through a viscous monster at 0:03 which is implying that children with autism are monsters as it's reflecting his behavior as at 0:06 he says "I used to lash out if somebody pushed my buttons or I wasn't able to do something" which portrays autism to be terrifying and can give of the effect that you shouldn't approach someone with autism, which a family who has an autistic child or autistic children would find offensive and make them feel awful about themselves. Also with this advert it includes content about bullying as at 0:11 he talks about being insulted by his fellow peers, which seemed to appear to the audience that Dan was blaming himself for getting bullied. Even though this advert had 62 complaints the advert was not upheld as the monster shown was to represent his anger and frustration and the advert was mainly relating to how Dan dealt with this autism and that there is help out there. With this advert, I think they could of maybe approached it better with the content as if a young child that didn't have autism watched this advert, it would create a bad influence upon them and create them to be scared of children with autism due it being presented by a monster, that most children would find scary.
Banned food advertisementIn this advert, it starts of with a family having breakfast and then they all separately begin to talk about their plans for the day. The youngest boy begins first, having a camera shot at 0:03 of his bowl, which has three Bittersweet biscuits inside. At the end of the advert, at 0:54 it implies to the audience that Weetabix can get you through the day as the graphics say " Fuel for Big Days" and also on the packaging it says " slow release energy" and this is main reason why complaints were made against the advert. The audience believed that this advert was giving the wrong impression, due to them knowing that Weetabix has a high GI( glycemic index) rating. Also even though it isn't mentioned in the ASA feedback on the complaint, it can also be taken into consideration that the advert is implying that you should eat more than one Weetabix biscuit as at 0:03 and 0:17, there is about three biscuits the bowls, which even though breakfast is an important meal of the day, the advertisers still should of took into to consideration that it can show big portions, which then goes against the ASA rulings. When it came to the ASA looking into the complaints, they mainly looked into the GI of Weetabix with milk, which then led onto the ASA doing surveys to see how the audience eats Weetabix and then after that further research was done into the health side of it, which resulted in the advert being upheld due when eaten with semi-skimmed milk, it had a GI of 41-47, which is a low range and also when Weetabix is eaten with whole milk it still had a low GI. The ASA told Weetabix that they are not allowed to broadcast there advert again until they show more clearly that slow release energy keeps you going.
Confectionery advert
This advert has a animation style and is based of the animation film "Father Christmas". The advert shows him after delivered the presents around the world. He arrives back home where he finds a KitKat bar, where the advert is stating at 0:25 visually and through the voice over that KitKats only have 107 calories. Overall this advert only received two complaints due to the advert implying that it's a healthy snack just because it only has 107 calories and not much information is provided other than that, which has led to the member of the audience to complain about how they are not advertising KitKats being high in fat and sugar. The other complaint was based upon the advert directly advertising it to children due to Santa being shown in the advert, which breached the rules of food advertising as children look up to Santa and could put the wrong message across to them, being that after working hard you deserve something sweet. From this I would take in to consideration, for when it comes to my advert, that if I was to use a image of a character my audience related too, I would portray them in the best way with the product and make sure that all the information is there. In the end the ASA decided to upheld the advert as the KitKat was compared to mince pies at 0:17 and gave the impression that they are bad for you and low in energy and that they also decided that even though Santa is an iconic image for Christmas for children, the ad was not directly aimed towards them as at 0:28 we see Santa taking more of an adult relaxation approach. After this the ASA decided that this advert was never meant for broadcast again.
Children advertisement
This advert is a trailer of the film Transformers: revenge of the fallen. The content in this trailer mainly consists of explosions and the destruction of cities and navy ships at 0:41. This ad received 9 complaints due to it being showed at inappropriate times and channels that are aimed towards children, as one of the complaints to the ASA said that it was broadcast on the Cartoonito channel, which is aimed at pre-school children. This advert is rather inappropriate for children as at 0:46 we see the sinking of battle ships. at 0:51 the destruction of a home and at 0:53 we see a larger robot transforming into a car. All of these parts of the trailer can cause harm to a child's welfare and depending on how young they are, it might make them think that this is really happening in the world, making them become frightened, as at a young age children shouldn't be exposed to such rough violence. The ASA did further research into the channels that this ad had been broadcast on and told the advertisers, that they had breached one of their rules of broadcasting such content on childrens channel and they had removed the targeted children after they had seen the complaints. In the end this advert was upheld due to the breach of broadcasting and causing harm to young children, even though the ad did no contain any scenes of death or blood, it still had a good amount of violence used through out it such as at 1:05.
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