This year we’re celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
It may be our diamond birthday, but we’re certainly not slowing down. In fact, we’re busier than ever. Over the first two years of our existence, we received one hundred complaints. Last year alone, it was over 43,000.
Our remit has expanded greatly since 1962. From non-broadcast electronic media in 1995, to TV and radio ads in 2004, to companies’ own claims on their own websites and social media accounts in 2011. We’ve seen the birth of the internet, the rise of social media, the expansion of the global market and many societal changes.
But the heart of our work remains: to keep ads legal, decent, honest and truthful.
For sixty years, that mission has defined everything we do. Our system, supported through the buy-in of advertisers, agencies, media and platforms, helps us ensure ads are following the rules. We know that when people are made aware of our work and how we function, trust increases, not just in the ASA but in ads too.
The past five years at the ASA – and the ad industry as a whole - have been marked by adapting to an ever-more online world. So we’ve kept innovating, utilising new technology and conducting research to ensure our rules are protecting the public. To do that, we’ve called on the ongoing commitment of the industry. This year, we launched the IPP – a world first pilot with platforms including Google, Meta, TikTok, Twitter, Snap, Amazon Ads and Yahoo, to ensure consistency in how they raise awareness of our rules with advertisers and how they deal with non-compliant ads. Programmes like this are a key part of our evolution.
We’ve developing new machine-learning based tools to help us proactively find and remove irresponsible ads, including on social media. We’re expanding our data science capabilities to identify and tackle ads that break our rules, both at pace and scale. And we’ve invested in supporting responsible businesses to help them get ads right before they run them. We’re on course for delivering 1,000,000 pieces of advice and training this year alone. Steadily, our work has shifted from reactive complaints to proactive and preventative action.
But the increasingly integral role the internet is playing in our lives also raises challenges. Last week, our 100 Children Report showed how potentially three and a half million social media accounts are owned by under-18s who have given false ages, making it more likely they will see age-restricted ads. Just as the ASA has had to develop its work, advertisers too need to ensure that they’re ensuring that their age-restricted ads aren’t delivered to young people. CAP has just launched new guidance in this space, and future projects will continue to research what children are seeing online and how advertisers should use social media responsibly.
The ASA also has a kay role to play when it comes to combating perhaps the most important issue of our time: climate change. This year we published research on consumer understanding of green claims in ads, as part of our Climate Change and Environment project. We know that the public is increasingly engaged with their carbon footprint and want to make ethical environmental choices. Advertisers need to be honest about their environmental impact, and we will continue to ensure that our regulation here is effective and thorough.
It's been a fascinating and rewarding sixty years, filled with changes we couldn’t have anticipated back in 1962. So what will the next sixty years of ad regulation look like? Undoubtedly the online ad-sphere will continue to expand, but what will that involve? How will the metaverse, AI-generated content, even wearable technology change advertising? The ASA can’t predict the future, we know that change is inevitable and we’re excited to embrace it head on.
But we expect one thing to remain the same: the ASA will be here doing all we can to make sure UK advertising is legal, decent, honest and truthful.
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Guy Parker
Chief Executive
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Guy became Chief Executive of the ASA, the UK regulator of ads in all media, in 2009. Responsible for executing the ASA’s strategy to make UK ads responsible, he oversees all functions of the ASA system. Read more
