Although ASA and OFCOM do the same thing overall they are slightly different. One way they are different are that OFCOM work to regulate Advertising on TV and communication channels such as postal services and fixed line telecoms. They also help to protect people against scams and making sure that TV competitions are working and not a fix to con people. Whereas he ASA work with the public by taking their complaints and proactively checking media for misleading advertising. The ASA and OFCOM respond to complaints by setting up comities and using different people to help determine if the advert should or shouldn't be removed from the form of media. These two regulators use codes which are like rules which should be followed. Some examples of these codes are to do with crime, religion, harm and cause overall offence.
There are two different types of codes, non-broadcasting and broadcasting. These codes can be downloaded meaning anyone can have access to them. Non-broadcasting codes are ones that must be followed by the company making the advert of what they are not allowed to include in their advert or guidelines of how much they can include. One code is for gambling and if included should not portray, condone or encourage gambling behaviour that is socially irresponsible or could lead to financial, social or emotional harm. It should not be aimed towards people who are not of age to use or do the subject. Another code is for things that include food, food supplements and claims about health and nutrition. some the rules included in this code are that any claims made by the advert must be backed up by recording s that it does do what you say. Another one is that you are not allowed to disapprove another product in ways that it damages you.
The other type of code is broadcasting and this is enforced by the regulator such as Ofcom or Asa. This acts as a second barrier fr advertisers as they make sure content which has broken the non-broadcasting codes are removed from the TV. These codes are the same as non-broadcasting are only different in the stage at which they are conducted are.
1) Paddy Power Blind Football
This advert received 1,089 complaints saying that it was offensive to blind people and could encourage animal cruelty. This advert shows a game of blind football taking place when a cat walks onto the pitch through an opened gate and the footballer then kicks the cat. Because there were two separate complaints the ASA had to treat each separately looking into both the offence to blind people and how it could cause animal cruelty. After looking into both not upheld as they thought showing disabled people playing football was not seen as offensive and that the advert was not shown during children's programmes or in the day and that the situation was surreal.
2) Toyota Advert
This advert is for a Toyota GT86 a car by Toyota and shows an animated character driving a car that is not exciting then gets the said car above and drives it, at speed, through a wall whilst getting chased into real life. This advert was deemed to be unsuitable because complaints from the public said that it was "irresponsible and condoned dangerous driving." After these complaints and ASA looked into it and found that it broke some codes one of which was 19.1 "Marketing communications for motor vehicles, fuel or accessories must not depict or refer to practices that condone or encourage anti-social behaviour." The end result of these complaints were that the advert could not be shown on TV in the way it was which means that if toyota wanted the advert to be shown again then they would have to edit it so that dangerous driving was not shown.
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