1. What is the background of the ASA?
In 1961 the advertising association discussed with other media associations the problems with advertisement on television and agreed that the content should be accepted by the public and consumers of the product so their are no complaints, forming the Committee of Advertising Practice. (CAP)
CAP then produced the first edition of the British rules and regulations for advertisement and took it to action but still had faults within the system. In 1962 CAP established an new branch called ASA which followed a new code of rules and regulations, taking over the CAP, but were supervised by an authority.
In 1988 the Office of Fair Trade (OFT) legally backed up, due to the introduction of the Control of misleading Advertisement Regulation. This made their regulation a lawful code adverts must follow.
2. What is the role of the ASA in the regulation of advertisement?
In 1974 the Introduction of the Levy was made where the Advertising Standards Board of Finances (Asbof) secured funding for the system though a levy of 0.1% on advertising space costs. Due to the ASA not directly responsible for collecting the levy they are assured to stay independent, although they still get anough funding for their role and promote itself in public. The ASA regulate on adverts that has been complained by checking for harmful, misleading and offensive advertisement. They work on two sectors of advertisement, self-regulation for non-broadcast advertising and co-regulation for broadcast advertising. This means they get paid by the industry that writes the rules and regulation, although they stick to their own code of conduct with the ASA perspective of regulations.3. What is the legal standing of the ASA in relation to Ofcom?
For TV and Radio advertisement the ASA follow under the supervision of Ofcom, which means that ASA follow the contract that Ofcom as enforce. Ofcom is in charge of Scheduling advertisement In radio and TV. Therefore ASA and Ofcom must come to agreements when advertisement as broke the rules and needs taking down. ASA is the primary source of filing complaints and checking adverts to see if they fit the regulations, while this is their duties if Ofcom disagree, Ofcom has the right to keep it on air as they are higher power. Ofcom manages the day to day set up of radio and TV for multiple channels to organize what is allowed and not allowed, such as what cannot be shown before watershed. the adverts that brake the rules and regulations of either ASA or Ofcom have the chance to change their advert so it is acceptable or get it removed.
4. What are the procedures of the organisation?
ASA has a very well laid out page on their website for people to understand, how and what happens when they complain. The first step they point out if for the person who wants to complain to check themselves if the complaint they are making follow the code of ASA. If the complaint is relevant then it can be submitted to the ASA though email, letter, phone call or text. Then ASA will send back to the person complaining the name of the person handling their case, but if they wish they complainer can take their name off the system. The advert is then usually quickly check by the set person who is on investigating the complainers problem. If they find anything small they often tell the producers of the advert to change the ad, while if it a big problem the stop the ad from being shown all together. During this process ASA will involve all parities involved in the issue, this includes the complainer, the advertiser and possible the broadcaster. After the conclusion of their needs to be changes, if it is not done straight away then ASA takes matters further by following the Independent Review Procedure.
5. 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?
For every sub section of media interaction their a specific rules and codes to follow, so it can be allowed on air. This is something i must defiantly keep in mind when planning out my own advert so i don't brake any of the rules and regulations of the ASA. The CAP, BCAP and Ofcom state that all food and soft drink advertisement must not give false information about the healthiness of the product, but also not influence bad, unhealthy dieting habits to the public.On TV there is an additional schedule restriction for High Fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) food. Food and soft drink link into children an advertisement too, as due to this schedule restriction they have decided that children should not be shown between children programs or make children their clear and main target. CAP gives a list of rules regarding food/soft drinks and children, the main one being that unhealthy junk food should not be aimed towards children directly and therefore can not use them in a advert as the main act with the product.
Source -http://bcap.org.uk/Advertising-Codes/Broadcast-HTML/Section-13-Food,-food-supplements-and-associated-health-or-nutritional-claims.aspx
6a. Problematic Food and soft drink
This banned tango advert is an advert where a hilly part of town starts to have an avalanche of fruits. It a simple concept when they have many views of the fruit falling and doing actions such a knocking down a trolley at 0:25. The ASA reason of banning this advert is to due with misleading information about the product. By watching the advert you would believe the drink, Tango clear, is made from real fruits when the actual product does contain the flavours but not actual natural fruits. This means that the ad falsely informs the viewer on what the drink contains. This made many viewer complain about the product as it would effect their dieting pattern as well as buying for children. Another reason people complained about this advert is due to it being a "Rip off" of Sony Bravia bouncing balls Commercial, where the same action in the advert happens and also use the same music. Although this was not the reason for the advert for being upheld as Tango got permission from Sony, making the video a parody Ad not a copy. This lets me keep in mind when producing my own advertisement, to make sure all my secondary source content has got permission as well as following the rules about misleading information. For my production this would mean that i shouldn't make the chocolate bar does not appear more healthy than it is, or make it seem like it contains any ingredients that it actually does not contain. By doing this it would insure i don't mislead the viewer of any information and have rights to use the content i include.
6b. Children and Advertisement
This premire inn advert is a perfectly fine advert to have advertised on television as it doesn't brake any rules of having it aired. The advert starts with a small parody of "The Shinning," horror film, shown between 0:00 and 0:14.After this scene it transforms into a man saying how nice the premire inn is while taking a tour around one of the rooms they offer, shown at 0:16 very clearly. The reason this advert was put under ASA complaints is due to having it aired on a children's channel called Nick Jr. Due to the footage of the Shinning at the start of the video it has be reported to be inappropriate for children and scare them. The quote from ASA action towards the advert is, "The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form in or around programmes made for, or specifically targeted at, children." This means that if the advert is still allowed on TV but should not be on channels where children are likely to be watching.
This Action for Children advert is from a series of ads, Action of children made. This particular advert about a child named Dan who is artistic. The advert trys to get across, in a sketch animation style, how altruism has controlled his life and portrays it as a monster, here shown at 0:14 as he is trapped inside the monsters mouth. The problem with the ad is people became offended that they make a mental condition look like a negative thing to have, therefore making children feel like they are a monster if they have this mental condition. The advert is not allowed to be shown in its current state. The monster is also shown to be aggressive making other viewers of the advert think that all artistic children are aggressive, giving the children a bad name, once again braking the rule of protecting children from harm. This is clearly shown at 0:02 where the monster is lashing out at the screen, creating a mean aggressive and unwanted appearance towards the condition.