New rules for on-line marketing and advertising

March 07, 2011

As we blogged in a previous post about Facebook an marketing, the use of social media and on-line marketing techniques are fast growing. So it’s important to pay attention to new Advertising Standards Agency’s (ASA) rules. These new guidelines will affect every UK business with a website or companies that use social media as a means of promotion.

These changes are intended to plug the regulatory grey area between a company’s efforts to proactively promote its products or services via editorial and paid-for advertising.

What is ASA?

ASA is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all forms of media, including TV, sales promotions and marketing. The agency’s role is to ensure that adverts are “legal, decent and honest” – and its aim is to protect the interests of the consumer. Now the agency’s guidelines have been extended to include on-line marketing.

How will ASA regulate social media?

The ASA’s new remit covers marketing communication on a company’s own website and in other non-paid-for space such as blogs, communities or social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The agency will no doubt be busy. Last year, ASA reported 2,500 complaints, equivalent to two-thirds of all complaints, about on-line marketing. So only time will tell if the new ASA remit will help to adjudicate and reduce consumer complaints.

Take a closer look at the guidelines:

Websites: All copy and messages on websites or in social media channels where a business is promoted must be "legal, decent and honest". All claims must be qualified and any statistical data must be properly referenced.

Social media conversations: User-generated content falls within the new remit only if it is adopted and used proactively within an organisation’s own marketing communications, on its own website or in other non-paid-for space on-line under the organisation’s control. Comments about a brand on a company’s Facebook page by consumers as part of a natural conversation don’t fall under a code, but if, for example, a company used those quotes to promote its business on its home page then they would fall under the ASA’s scrutiny.

Video: Promotional videos such as adverts or content aimed at selling a product or search are covered by the code but editorial video content intended to communicate an opinion are not.

What will happen if you do not comply?

Any breach in the rulings could lead to the removal of the offending advertising and even a “naming and shaming” on the ASA website. 

Serious breaches of the code could be referred to the Office of Fair Trading under the 2008 Consumer Protection legislation.

For further infomration see ASA