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Websites - the sky may not be the limit
16 April 2010
Digital Britain aims to get as many people as possible online
and increase the overall population’s digital skills by 2012.
As the UK moves to becoming one of the world’s leading digital
knowledge economies the need to regulate advertising online is ever
increasing.
There has been concern for many years that the Advertising
Standard Authority’s (ASA’s) remit does not cover marketing
communications on companies’ own websites.
At the moment, the ASA is only able to adjudicate on complaints
relating to paid for advertising – such as search marketing and
display advertising. However, in 2009 alone, over 2,500 complaints
made to the ASA about advertising could not be addressed because
they related to companies marketing communications on their own
websites and other non-paid for space online, such as brand
activity on social networking sites.
The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) are now getting
closer to plugging this gap. To date, CAP has struggled to address
this issue due to funding constraints. However, funding collection
issues were successfully resolved in November 2009 and following a
recommendation from the Advertising Association (AA) CAP are now
driving forward towards a consultation with the ultimate aim of
bringing the new remit into effect as soon as possible. Rather
ambitiously, CAP anticipate that its remit will be extended by
autumn 2010.
What does this mean for you?
For a prudent brand owner, the extension of the ASA’s remit
should make no difference. Our Advertising and Marketing team
always recommend that a thorough review of a brand’s website is
undertaken prior to launch to ensure that all content on it does
not breach the CAP code.
However, whilst to date this has been best practice, once the
remit is extended such action will be mandatory.
It is likely that the remit will also extend to brand activity
on social networking sites, including blogs. It is therefore likely
that brand owners will need to ensure that all its marketing
activity is carefully vetted to ensure compliance with the CAP code
so that they do not unwittingly fall foul of it.
If the ASA upholds complaints in relation to breaches of the CAP
code its primary power is to recommend that marketing claims or
adverts are removed or not repeated.
However, as many more brand owners are experiencing, the
greatest sting of a negative ASA adjudication is the bad publicity
that flows from it. Particularly as many are becoming more
savvy in using the bad publicity of its competitors to promote
themselves.
We have many years’ experience in carrying out legal
compliance checks of marketing communications including content
included on companies’ own websites and if you would therefore like
any further information, please contact us.
talk to us
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The content of this bulletin is provided for the purposes of
general interest and information. It contains only brief summaries
of aspects of the subject matter and does not provide comprehensive
statements of the law. It does not constitute legal advice and does
not provide a substitute for it.