Case Study of Existing Advetising Campaings researching the role and impact of Advertiing Standards Authority (ASA) AND Ofcom

Case Study On Advetising Campaings

Underneath I will look at the different adverts that may have offended the viewers and look at what the main problems are for example harm and offense, young people copying and so on. I would be obtaining more of my information from the ASA webiste.

What is the Background of the ASA?

Firstly the ASA are the only organistation that are incharge of the advetising all togther, so they regulate the advertising across media. The ASA are under the Ofcom board and look at the advertising purely unless the advert needs full discussion. The independent regulator looks at the complaints that are withdrawn by the public, they also have the job of checking all media advertisig to make sure none of them breach the rules set by Ofcom. These aspects could be from the misleading of an advert, the harmfulness on a person in the advert.

The ASA where established in the 1950's and it wasn't until 1955 when commercial TV started broadcasting their adverts. In the 1950's the ASA were not the only organistatin that looked into the advertisments. In 1973 the radio commercial adverts were then launched an these also had to be looked at under control of the rules within advertising.

It was seen in the 1960's when all the industry agencies had to joint together and formed the commitee of advertising practice (CAP). However this was not see as affective as it came to the point where some sides of the commitee allowed the advertising of the product and some didn't this lead to confusion as the advertisments may have only been on billboards and not the radio and so on. This is what led to the ASA taking the lead role and becoming in charge and is now the only organisation that deals with all different advertisments.
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What is the role of the ASA in the regulation of advertisiments?

It is the ASA's job to adhere of any complaints about advertising from any sources, they also look over adverts prior to their airing if the product/branding ask to do so. So as the ASA they regulate all types of advertiments, this coud be from; TV adverts, billboards, radio and so forth. As said before it is the ASA's role to act towards complaints and retroactively checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful and offensive advertisiments. The ASA go through a process when regulating different adverts and underneath I briefly explain:             

 -Regulating Adverts 

They have to check that the advertisments stay within the rules they do this through producing surveys to the public to get opinons on the adverts and extensively look at the adverts.

-Before Advert gets Published

This is where all claims need to be established before the advert is being aired.

They are also incharge with other methods with the advertisments.

The ASA are funded by the advertisers this gives the ASA their independece. They are financed by the Advertising Stadards Board of Finance (Asbof) and the Broadcast Advertising Standards Board of Finance (Basbof). The ASA also recieve income, very little but from the seminars and premium industry advice services.
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What is the legal standing of the ASA in relation to Ofcom?

The ASA work in relation with two different organistions and for different reasons. They the ASA are incharge of advertisments but other regulators like Ofcom are incharge of media programmes. The ASA work with Ofcom in the broadcasting advertisments of Fair Trading which is the reponsibility of protecting the consumer in the UK. The ASA have the power to take the adverts down, if the advert does breach the rules and is complained about the ASA have the right to take it down or to get them to change. They have done this in some cases for example Cilit Bang gave out information that was not true therefore they had to re-do the advert. If the case becomes the ASA will act upon the Ofcom and ask for them to look into the advert and they may sometimes make the decisions, if it is serious.

This leads to the advertisers may have to amend their video therefore this will cost them more money and if they advert was to get withdrawn they would have wasted their money for no reason.
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What are the procedures of the organisation?

To make a complaint you would need to go on to the ASA website and make sure that you are making a valid complaint that is stated on the website. Once you have check this you would need to makes your complaint via the website letter or number and then the ASA will pass you on to someone who will look further in to your complaint. When you complain about an advert the Ofcom and ASA will decide whether the advert needs to be re-filmed or taken off the Tv or any other advertising sources. Some advertisers decide to go to the ASA and show them the advert before they pay to promote their adverts. They do this to save money and to decrease the amount of complaints that would get.

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Food & Soft Drinks

The advertising for foods and drinks is very limited it is important that confectionary adverts i.e chocolate, crisps, ice creams are not aimed at young children. To make sure they forfill this there are many rules they need to make sure they do not break and these can be;

>Children shoud not star in any confectionary adverts as it leads to the sweets being aimed towards young children.  It is not good for our bodies which is why adverts should not encourage young children to eat these types of products.

>Soft Drinks should also not be aimed towards young peopel espiaclly Coke as it has a high amount of caffiene in it which is not good for you.

>If the advert is not animation based they shoudl only use adults in the cast, by doing this it makes the target audience seem older due to the content.

Alcohol and Smoking
These points within advertising have their own set of rules due to the damage you can gain for the. Underneath I outline just some of these rules.
>Smoking is band from advertments regardless as they kill. The only advert allowed are those advert that try to stop you from smoking.
>Alochol adverts are not allowed to be advertised as being a good thing.
>Alochol adverts also have to have information about the affects of alcohol during the advertisment. They need to reference why alcohol is not good for you.
> Alcohol adverts must only show alochol with men when going to get a 'pint' after work. As its socialble.

 After understanding these terms and conditions within adverts. I have looked at other adverts that have been problematic towards children. I have done this so when I go to re-brand my chocolate and make an advert that I do not breach these rules. I understand that the product I will be re-branding would be a chocolate bar therefore I would need to look at the target audience. As I cannot aim my advertisements towards young children.

Breaking the rules adverts!
There are many different ways inw hich you can offend the viewers through looking on the ASA website I have come up with some adverts that where complained about by the public viewers and the first two I will be look at where the advetrs in regarding to sterotyping.

Trident Soft

The first advert that I will be looking at was complained about by the public was the bubble gum advert on ' Trident Soft'. This advert showcases a black man tasting the bubble gum and when he starts talking he has what seems to be a jamacian accent. This was complained about as the viewers felt that the advert sterotyped black people and made it seem like they all talk like that which they don't. The main problem was that black people were offended as the actor may not of been Jamacian but done a jamacian accent.

Although the advert was complained about by the public this advert was not witheld and is still able to watch. The ASA decided that the advert did not break any rules of theirs and the audience made a big thing out of an advert which was purely about the entertainment. The branding clearly throught this would be a good idea to make it more memorable through he convention of being funny/humerous with the accent of the man. The trident soft advert was not upheld however other adverts were upheld.

After looking at this advert I have come to realise that the public viewers complain about a lot of different aspects. I am going to make sure when planning and developing my advert on a re-branding of a chocolate that I will make sure there are no aspects that can possible cause any reasoning for the viewers to complain.

  Some people also complained about the advert as they could not understand what the actor was saying at 0.39. This advert has not been upheld and is still able to watch on youtube.

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Macdonalds

Certain products are not allowed to be advertised to persuade young children to wanting to buy the product for example the macdonalds adverts have changed over the past years and it is now that we see it has no links towards children. The advert have to stick to selling the product to adults not children. Within all there adverts they mostly use older cast members to act as they need it to reach out to that target audience otherwise their advert can get withheld. Underneath shows one of the macdonalds adverts. I have just gone over this as this is important that 'junk foods' are not aimed towards young children as it is not healthy for them. Junk foods are seen as bas as they can increase obesity and can also cause heart and liver problems.

As you can see from this advert the main character in this advert is a middle age man and even all the extra's in the advert are middle age and above to make the advert seem more so for adults than children. If not noticed macdonalds have also rebranded their whole shop and made it look more formal and sophisticated. This was mainly because they are not allowed to gear in young people in there shop. Before macdonalds used to be bright red and yellow and always had a clown this was very engaging for young children. Therefore there whole branding of the shop had to change.

This makes me look at my own advert that I will be re-branding a chocolate as I would have to look at the same things macdonalds had to in order to make sure I am not selling the chocolate towards a young age audience. Underneath shows how macdonalds have re-branded themselves to target a different age in audience.

The things I will need to bare in mind when making my advert are;
>How I will rebrand the chocolate to a older target audience 
>Not convey anything that will promote chocolate to young children

Problematic Foods & Drink Advertisments

After looking on the ASA website at all there rulings I have come across a complaint on the Kellogs Cereal, although this was based on an advert it was based on a poster. I still found it intriguing what people had to complain about. After I have previously looked at a Kellogs Advert. 

Kellogs

The poster was a coco-pops advertisement which featured a cartoon character 'coco the monkey' in school uniform which instantly associated the advert with children. The ad stated "Ever thought of Coco Pops after school?". This cased complaints as it automatically associated cereals that were high in sugar with 'school children' and also made it seem alright for children to eat cereal more than once a day. There were two issues and underneath shows the exact quote of these issues from the ASA rulings.

1. Twenty-six complainants, including Sustain: The Alliance for Better Food & Farming, challenged whether the ad was irresponsible, because they believed it directly targeted school children and encouraged them to eat a snack that was high in sugar.

2. Some complainants, including Sustain,challenged whether the ad was irresponsible because they believed it encouraged children to eat two bowls of breakfast cereal a day.

The Kellogs company replied to the complaints firstly by picking up they were not trying to encourage children to eat cereal more than twice a day but can be eating as a snack. They then went on to say that coco-pops were lower in sugar than other 'snack products' like banana's, yoghurts, toast and so forth. Kellogs then emphasised that coco pops are not bad for you and have iron, b vitamins and calcium when eaten with milk which is all good for young children. All of these reasons left the ASA to leave the poster as it was not harming no one and the deeper meaning was cereal can be eaten as a snack. Kellogs also added that 90% of children already ate an after school snack and left the coco pops cereal as a snack harmless. This advertisement poster was not withheld.

KFC Advert
Kfc were complained about through their advertisement on their advert. On the other hand this advert was partly upheld other than the Kellogs advertisement. The Kfc advert consisted of a young man dressed in kitchen overalls whilst preparing different types of food he says in the advert "When I was younger, I wasn't interested in food at all. I was interested in eating food; very interested in that!" The whole point of the advert was the the young man was making/cooking fresh chicken by hand and then giving it straight to customers that we saw eating it.

The first complaint was about the chicken all being fresh chicken cooked and the audience felt mislead by what the young man was saying because the only chicken they have which is un-boned was the chicken he was preparing which made what he was saying not very accurate. The viewers also felt if the advert said they prepare fresh chicken everyday that the customers should expect this however that is not true, so what kfc were saying seemed misleading. Although we know Kfc didn't mean exactly like that it was more of a slogan but the viewers took it more seriously. After looking at the three different complaints which I quote beneath; 

1. 18 viewers believed the ad was misleading because it claimed the food was fresh and prepared in store whereas they believed the food was prepared off-site and the chicken was delivered frozen.  

2. One of the viewers also believed the ad misleadingly implied the chicken was delivered daily, which he understood was not the case.

3. Two viewers, and one of the viewers mentioned above, believed the ad misleadingly implied that the chicken was grilled rather than fried.

The overall perception of this advert was not all the information KFC were giving were valid and almost seemed misleading this led to the ASA taking action and partially being upheld. This meant that if the advert wanted to be aired again there would have to be changes in the content.