Committee of Advertising Practice

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) is a British organisation responsible for the UK Code of Non-Broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing, which is the main code of practice for self-regulation of the non-broadcast advertising industry in the UK.

Not to be confused with the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice, which regulates advertisements on television and radio.
Committee of Advertising Practice
AbbreviationCAP
TypeNon-governmental organisation
PurposeAdvertising industry self-regulation policy creation
HeadquartersCastle House, 37-45 Paul Street, Shoreditch, London[1]
Region served
United Kingdom
Websiteasa.org.uk

It is the sister organisation of, and is administered by, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).[2]

Role and responsibilities

The CAP, alongside ASA, is primarily responsible for the constant revising and updating of the UK Code of Non-Broadcast Advertising, Direct Marketing, and Sales Promotion (CAP Code).[3][4] CAP also provides training and advice for advertisers to help them understand the Code,[5] including offering free advice to companies on whether their ad copy is likely to meet the Code requirements.[6] Broadcast advertising is explicitly not within the remit of the CAP; instead, advertisements that are broadcast on television or radio are regulated by the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice and their separate standards.[7] Industries under particular focus for CAP in terms of rules and guidelines for advertising include alcohol[5] and gambling.[2]

Though some of the advertising rules are legally enforceable, the majority are self-regulatory and based on the commitment of involved stakeholders following best practice.[2] The Committee has no statutory or common law powers in the UK;[8] despite this fact, courts have found that CAP decisions are subject to the judicial review process, in the same way as they would be were it to be the case that CAP was a government body.[9] The CAP Code is, however, not considered to be covered by competition law in the United Kingdom.[10]

Whilst the Committee itself is composed of members from advertisers and the media, its operations are overseen by the ASA's Governing Council, at least half of whose members are not linked to the advertising industry.[11] This Council is able to overturn the decisions that CAP makes, if it decides that it would be appropriate to do so.[3]

History

Foundation

Work on a voluntary code to regulate advertising in the UK began with the Advertising Association (AA) in 1960, following the advent of commercial television in the country, which was at the time an incredibly controversial concept.[12] Amid the controversy, and fearing the potential for government regulation akin to that of the Federal Communications Commission in the United States,[13] the AA created the Committee in 1961, aiming to ensure that non-broadcast advertisements were "honest, decent, legal and truthful".[14]

Over time, its role became more closely linked to government agencies. In 1988, the Committee began to work more closely with the Office of Fair Trading, now part of the Competition and Markets Authority, following the passage of the Control of Misleading Advertisements Regulations of that year.[15]

Decisions

In the mid-1990s, the Committee deemed an advert for Brass Monkeys-branded underwear that "focused on the groin area" of a male model to be "unsuitable for public consumption".[16] Critics claimed that the decision was sexist, saying that adverts of a similar or even more sexual nature featuring women had been allowed.[17]

With email spam on the rise around the turn of the millennium, in 2003, the Committee modified the CAP Code to require unsolicited email advertising to be easily identifiable, and to put restrictions on when it could be used at all.[18] These restrictions were put in place around the same time as the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, which similarly restricted the ability of email spammers to legally send junk mail.[19][20]

In February 2008, CAP banned adverts for products with high fat, salt and sugar content on programmes that are specifically targeted at children between the ages of four and fifteen.[21] Similar restrictions were imposed by the Committee in December 2016, when CAP announced it had extended the broadcast ban on banning junk food ads to digital media, stopping the advertising of "high fat, salt or sugar food or drink products" in media where more than 25% of the audience was under 16. This covered print, cinema, and digital channels, including social media.[22] Some criticised the decision as abrogating parental responsibility for what children consume.[23]

As digital marketing became more and more significant, in March 2011, CAP extended the remit of the CAP Code to encompass a variety of different marketing tactics used online by companies, including the posting of content to their own websites. Prior to this change, the CAP Code had only applied to those adverts which were contained within paid advertising spots.[24]

On 9 March 2017, the Committee published new guidelines on working with online influencers, particularly on social media. These guidelines described the requirements for audiences to clearly see when material is an advertisement, even before clicking through to the content itself.[25] However, the guidelines have been interpreted in different ways across different ASA enforcement decisions.[26]

In December 2018, the Committee issued new guidelines effective 14 June 2019, prohibiting the usage of gender stereotypes "likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence" in advertising.[27][28] The decision followed an advertisement featuring a woman in a bikini and the tagline "Are you beach body ready?" for a company called Protein World, which prompted 378 separate complaints to the ASA.[29] News reports claimed that a variety of advertisements that had previously aired would no longer be acceptable under the new rules.[30]

See also

References
  1. "The ASA and CAP are moving". Advertising Standards Authority. 9 September 2019. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  2. "Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP)". Archived from the original on 14 December 2018. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  3. Feintuck, Mike; Varney, Mike (2006). "Institutional Design and Accountability in UK Media Regulation". Media regulation, public interest and the law (2nd ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 197. ISBN 0-7486-2715-4. JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctt1r1zdc. OCLC 71000508.
  4. "Advertising update – the new CAP and BCAP Codes" (PDF). August 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 October 2018. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  5. Alcohol (Licensing, Public Health and Criminal Justice) Scotland Bill (PDF) (Report). Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP). ALPC43. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  6. "Copy Advice team". Advertising Standards Authority | Committee of Advertising. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  7. Self- and Co-Regulation: The Advertising Standards Authority (Report). Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. 17 December 2010. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  8. Sinclair, Michael (1992). "Judicial Review of the Exercise of Public Power". The Denning Law Journal. 7 (1): 199. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  9. Lidbetter, A W (1994). "The Advertising Standards Authority, the Committee of Advertising Practice and Judicial Review". Media Law & Practice. 15 (4): 113–114. Retrieved 19 July 2020 – via Hein Online.
  10. Reich, Norbert (1992). "Rechtsprobleme grenzüberschreitender irreführender Werbung im Binnenmarkt: – dargestellt am deutschen, französischen und englischen Recht unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des EG-Rechts –" [Legal problems of cross-border misleading advertising in the internal market: illustrated by German, French and English law, with particular reference to EC law]. Rabels Zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht / The Rabel Journal of Comparative and International Private Law (in German). 56 (3): 489. ISSN 0033-7250. JSTOR 27877545.
  11. Munro, Colin (1997). "Self-regulation in the media". Public Law (Spring): 12.
  12. Brown, Andrew (2006). "Advertising Regulation and Co-Regulation: The Challenge of Change". Economic Affairs. 26 (2): 31–36. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0270.2006.00628.x. ISSN 1468-0270. S2CID 154130127.
  13. Mackay, Adrian (2005). The practice of advertising (5th ed.). Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 332. ISBN 978-0-7506-6173-7. OCLC 474951974.
  14. Morris, Yvonne; Randle, Paul (22 September 2005). "Developments in the Regulation of Broadcasting Advertising". The Entertainment and Sports Law Journal. 3 (1): 5. doi:10.16997/eslj.123. ISSN 1748-944X.
  15. Hörnle, Julia; Carran, Malgorzata A. (December 2018). "A sieve that does hold a little water – gambling advertising and protection of the vulnerable in the UK". Legal Studies. 38 (4): 529–548. doi:10.1017/lst.2018.5. ISSN 0261-3875. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  16. Jobling, Paul (2003). "Underexposed: Spectatorship and Pleasure in Men's Underwear Advertising in the Twentieth Century". Paragraph. 26 (1/2): 158. doi:10.3366/para.2003.26.1-2.147. ISSN 0264-8334. JSTOR 43263720.
  17. Culf, Andrew (13 November 1996). "Warning over men's briefs ad 'sexist'". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 July 2020 – via ProQuest.
  18. Booth, Emily (April 2003). "Code acts to cap influx of spam". Revolution. ISSN 1460-5953. ProQuest 231133199.
  19. "Spam": Report of an Inquiry by the All Party Internet Group (PDF) (Report). All Party Parliamentary Internet Group. October 2003. p. 11. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  20. Hare, Zoe (October 2009). "Who should regulate consumer credit advertising and sales?". Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice. 11 (2): 151–155. doi:10.1057/dddmp.2009.25. ISSN 1746-0166. S2CID 167376071.
  21. Haug, Thomas Walter (2008). "The New Audiovisual Media Services Directive as a Missed Opportunity in View of the Protection of Children and Young People against Harmful Influences of Advertisement in Nowadays' Media EU Law" (PDF). Hanse Law Review. 4 (1): 35.
  22. Reeve, Belinda; Magnusson, Roger (2018). "Regulation of Food Advertising to Children in Six Jurisdictions: A Framework for Analyzing and Improving the Performance of Regulatory Instruments" (PDF). Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law. 35 (1). Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  23. Haworth, Elliott (12 December 2016). "Banning junk food ads won't stem the flow of fat kids". CityAM. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  24. Schneider, Fiona (January 2015). "CAP publishes 'online remit update'". Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice. 16 (3): 230–232. doi:10.1057/dddmp.2015.13. ISSN 1746-0166. S2CID 167659291.
  25. Roderick, Leonie (9 March 2017). "Brands should be aware of social platform 'quirks' when working with influencers". Marketing Week. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  26. Riefa, Christine; Clausen, Laura (1 April 2019). "Towards Fairness in Digital Influencers' Marketing Practices". Journal of European Consumer and Market Law. 8 (2).
  27. "Gender stereotypes in adverts banned". BBC News. 14 June 2019. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
  28. "Watchdog bans gender stereotypes in adverts". BBC News. 14 December 2018. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
  29. Shibley, Kristen Edwardine (2019). "United Kingdom Regulation of Gender Stereotyping in Non-Broadcast Media" (PDF). George Washington International Law Review. 51 (2). Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  30. "Ads that would probably have been banned under the ASA's new gender stereotype rules". The Drum. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
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