ASA to host digital marketing seminar
The new activities were launched in response to more than 4500 complaints about online marketing received by the ASA since 2008.
The two-hour morning workshop is designed to help companies comply with UK advertising codes will be held on November 25 and consider:
- Overview of the regulatory system
- General Principles of the CAP Code
- Why the extended remit is needed and how we got here
- How the rules will be applied
- What’s in and what’s out
- Sanctions for non-compliance
- How to make sure your online marketing communications comply
- Q&A
Details can be found here. Further workshops will be held on January 12 and 27.
The ASA said the workshop was targeted at individuals working in, “brand and marketing management, advertising creative development, account management, legal and regulatory affairs and corporate communications.”
Online advertiser beware
A scan of corporate websites and social networking tools conducted by NutraIngredients reveals a plethora of messages that contravene EU health claim laws, which the ASA will be able to rule on from March 1, 2011, after a six-month grace period expires.
The ASA is a complaints driven body but it does engage in compliance surveys in particular sectors and has received a substantial resources boost as part of the announcement made today to proactively rake the internet for potential breaches.
It has enlisted the support of major search engines to this end, an ASA spokesperson said. “For this to be effective we need to work with the search engines.”
Search behemoth Google has donated £200,000 (€240,000) in seed capital for the project and the industry through online search and media agencies have agreed to donate 0.1 per cent of its search advertising spend to fund the ASA expansion – expected to raise another £700,000 (€841,000).
The ASA proposed two potential sanctions against those players that failed to comply with its rulings:
- Removal of paid-for search advertising – ads that link to the page hosting the non-compliant marketing communication may be removed with the agreement of the search engines.
- ASA paid-for search advertisements - the ASA could place advertisements online highlighting an advertiser’s continued non-compliance.
