Advertising standards (ASA)

The Advertising Standards Authority is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. We apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice. Our work includes acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements. 
The Advertising standards Authority is in place to ensure the adverts are suitable and responsible for the television at all times, the ASA ensures nobody can be offended by different adverts that are on the television. 
A CAP code are the many different rules for advertising, there around 30 different categories which are all looked on very closely to ensure that everything what goes on the television is suitable for the many different viewers. As you can see below these are all the different categories within this which ensure nobody is offended by different advertisements, The latest one being about E-Cigs. 

                        

As you can see there are many different rules within the CAP code, one being the newest one that has recently been introduced, E-Cigs it has many rules within the one rule itself, for example rule 33.3 is 'Advertisements must contain nothing which promotes the use of a tobacco product or shows the use of a tobacco product in a positive light. This rule is not intended to prevent cigarette-like products being shown'. They have many different rules like this, the reason they have this rule in place is because smoking is bad for you, therefore it shouldn't be advertised as a good thing because it may influence people to smoke. 

Here are a selection of adverts that have either been ban or tested against different rules and been complained about, These adverts can be banned for many different reasons, some could be because they wasn't meeting the right rules and couldn't change the advert itself, or maybe they have offended people and they have complained about a certain advert which has then had to be taken down. 

For example one of the adverts that has been reported is a burger king advert back in 2010, 'Two viewers objected that the ad was misleading because they believed the chicken burger sold in Burger King stores was significantly smaller than the one shown in the ad. The complaint was ‘upheld’ after the ASA went to Burger King and bought some of the burgers; we then photographed them in the hands of an average sized man for comparison and found the burgers were indeed smaller than advertised'.

therefore this advert was then taken off the television etc due to false advertisement by burger king making their burgers look bigger than they actually are. 

Another example of an advert than had been looked into is the Beyonce heart perfume back in 2010. 'Viewers complained the ad was offensive and not suitable to be broadcast when children might be watching. We considered the ad was sexually suggestive and might therefore be distasteful to some, but decided that, in the context of marketing for perfume, the ad was unlikely to cause serious or widespread to most viewers. However, we also considered that due to sexually suggestive nature of the imagery in the ad, it should have not have been shown before 7.30 pm'. 

And a final advert i looked at was Clinique repairwear laser wrinkle serum back in 2012. 'A viewer challenged whether the use of a young looking model in the ad gave a misleading impression of the efficacy of the product; and whether the claim "Women agree, skin is smoother and looks younger" based on "79% of 221 women" was misleading. The ASA did not uphold the complaints because they considered that viewers were likely to understand the before and after images implied using the product could help skin remain smooth and young looking in appearance. The advertiser was also able to produce evidence to support their statistical claim'.
In conclusion i agree with the rules of the ASA because without them the television would be offending many people and a lot of people wouldn't be very happy with what is included in the advertisement  Without the ASA there would be many unsuitable things which are broadcasted on the television, having rules in place make the adverts more suitable and reliable for the television and wont be telling the audience false information.