It was late 2010 when we announced a “landmark development” that, from the 1 March 2011, would “deliver more comprehensive consumer protection online”. The extension of our online remit to cover marketing claims on company websites and in other third party space under their control, such as social media, was, without doubt, a significant regulatory milestone.

In the five years since, we’ve tackled an array of issues impacting on consumers and businesses, grappled with emerging technologies and advertising techniques to ensure advertising in these spaces sticks to the rules. But why did our remit need extending, what has it meant in terms of our workload and what challenges lie ahead?

A regulatory gap

Prior to 2011, we already regulated internet ads in paid-for space, like banner ads, pop-ups and paid search results; and we took action to ban them if they broke the rules. But if a company made a marketing claim on its own website and a consumer or a competitor thought it was misleading, harmful or offensive, we were unable to respond to their concerns. In short, we faced a situation where we might ban an ad claim in one media, for instance a poster, but that same problem claim could continue to appear on a company’s own website.

It was a regulatory gap that needed plugging. Ensuring the same rules apply to company websites enhances consumer protection which in turn helps to promote trust as well as fair competition. Ultimately, business benefits; ads that are better trusted are more likely to be effective.

A rise in complaints

One immediate impact of our remit extension was the significant increase in our workload. In 2010 before our remit was extended, we received 2,648 complaints about 2,327 online ads. In 2011, those figures had risen to 10,123 complaints about 9,295 ads, an increase of nearly 300% on the previous year. It immediately became the second most complained about media behind TV. And that trend continued to the point where, in 2014, online advertising overtook TV as the most complained about media with 13,477 complaints about 10,202 ads. Regulating online advertising now represents around 30% of our total workload.

Consumer wins

That work has led to some significant successes in bolstering protections for consumers online. For example, we’ve been proactive in working to improve online pricing in the hotel sector by getting them to include VAT in their advertised room prices. We’ve been tackling false health claims that might discourage vulnerable people from seeking proper medical advice. And we clamped down on misleading ‘copycat websites’ - companies offering services like passport or driving licence renewals using websites and ads that make it appear as though they are official or authorised.

Old and new

While many of the issues that we tackle online reflect what we’ve always dealt with in traditional media – truthfulness and clarity around pricing, transparency of terms and conditions, fair and honest claims and socially responsible ads – we’ve also undertaken work that, just five years ago, was not on our regulatory radar.

One such issue is the rise of vloggers, as well as other online content creators, being paid to promote products and services and how and when they should disclose that to their followers. While there is nothing wrong with commercial tie-ins between brands and vloggers, in the last few years we’ve made some high profile rulings, issued new guidance and worked closely with brands and vloggers to ensure that they’re upfront and clear with consumers about when editorial content becomes advertising.

The opportunities online for advertisers and brands to be innovative and creative has, on occasion, led to a blurring of the lines between editorial and marketing content. Such has been the case with some ‘native’ ads. Native advertising is where brands pay for and control content that is designed to blend in with or look like ordinary editorial on a website. Again, we’ve said that it’s essential advertising is clearly labelled up front. Consumers shouldn’t have to play detective in working out what’s advertising and what’s not. Our Chief Executive, Guy Parker’s opinion piece on this topic provides further insight.

And transparency sits at the heart of the new rules that we introduced around Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA). OBA is a form of targeted advertising. It involves the collection of information from a computer’s web browser so that it can be used to deliver online advertisements that are more likely to be of interest to the user of that computer. The rules require ad networks delivering behaviourally targeted ads to make clear they are doing so by providing the public with notice of, and control over this form of advertising.

Online challenges

As technologies develop apace, as advertisers find new and increasingly sophisticated ways of identifying their audiences and tailoring and targeting their ads, we continue to work to ensure that consumers, and in particular children, are afforded the right level of protection while allowing responsible advertising to flourish.

Media consumption habits, specifically amongst young people, are changing dramatically. As a nation, we’re increasingly migrating online, accessing media, including TV-like content, on demand and at our convenience. In 2015, for the first time, 12-15yr olds spent more time online than watching TV.

This naturally raises questions and presents challenges around ensuring that young people are protected from potentially inappropriate or harmful content. Moreover, our own research tells us that young people are misreporting their ages in social media and elsewhere online and, as a result, being served with or seeing ads for age-restricted products. How do we tackle that and what role do parents, social media companies and the wider ad industry have to play in addressing this problem? We agree it’s an issue that needs to be tackled, we’ve raised it with major social media platforms and we’re having a dialogue with them about ways of tackling it. Finding a solution that works will require us to explore a number of technical challenges (such as around data protection issues) and we’re currently working through some of those.

Meeting the challenge

The first five years of our online remit extension have thrown up all kinds of challenges and policy developments. In that time, we’ve made substantial strides in tackling a range of consumer protection issues, providing help, advice and guidance to advertisers and businesses as well as reaching out to and raising awareness of the rules amongst new audiences who, in many instances, operate solely online.

While the online world is a fast evolving and dynamic landscape, the tried and tested principles at the heart of the Advertising Code apply equally to this space. The public rightly expects businesses to deal with them as truthfully and fairly online as in other media. And by and large, businesses do.

Although we can’t always predict what new marketing innovation or technique will be developed next, we are committed to keeping pace with this rapidly changing technological and social environment. We’ll continue to take action when and where it’s needed, and will work with advertisers to help them advertise responsibly so that our online remit extension delivers protection for consumers for the next five years and beyond.

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