Today, the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP and BCAP), on behalf of the ASA, are issuing a further consultation on the implementation of new restrictions on food and drink advertising to children introduced by government through legislation.  

The less healthy product advertising rules will come into effect from October 2025. They will prohibit ads for “identifiable” less healthy products from being included in Ofcom-regulated TV services and on-demand programme services between 5:30am and 9:00pm, and from being placed in paid-for space in online media at any time.  

The new consultation sets out revised proposals for guidance to explain how the rules will be applied by the ASA when they come into force in October. This follows up on the first consultation exercise launched at the end of 2023.  

As a recent interim statement on the first consultation explained, responses and further legal advice have led CAP and BCAP to consider that the implementation guidance should be revised significantly to better reflect the law; in particular, with regard to how ads that do not include direct references to food and drink products, might still be restricted because their use of various kinds of branding and other ad content might result in an ad being deemed to be for “identifiable” less healthy product.  

The consultation is open to all stakeholders including members of the public and will run for 4 weeks closing on 18 March 2025 at 5:00pm.

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