The ASA has upheld a complaint concerning a Christmas card which was offered for sale through the Amazon market place by the seller named smellyourmum.com. The front of the card contained wording incorporating a strong expletive which, although partly obscured using an asterisk, the ASA considered was likely to cause serious and widespread offence in
Is the ASA Getting in Your Personal Space?
The wait is finally over… Hot on the heels of yesterday’s launch of product placement onto UK television, today marks another dawn of a new age in UK advertising. As of today, Tuesday 1st March 2011, the regulatory remit of the ASA is extended to cover online non-paid for space and pages under the control
Super Bowl XLV: The Stakes Were High On and Off the Field
115 million viewers. $3 million for 30 seconds of airtime. $210 million total advertising spend. Forget the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers slugging it out for the Vince Lombardi trophy, the real game was being played in the Super Bowl’s commercial breaks.
Super Bowl XLV, like its predecessors, produced some very well received
Virgin in Champagne Bath Scandal
A Virgin Holidays poster advertising their “Travel Guru Services” was recently found by the ASA to be in breach of the CAP Code in relation to alcohol used in advertising. The ad depicts four rockstars in a jacuzzi full of champagne, with various bottles and glasses surrounding them and a female Virgin Holidays employee pouring
Luxury Brand Protection? Stella McCartney v. the Sanitary Towel
Advertisers have been given the green light to continue to use the name of products they give away as prizes in promotions, without needing the permission of the brand/product owner, following a recent controversial adjudication by the ASA.
The ASA disagreed and found in favour of Bodyform in all respects. Clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness),14.7 (Testimonials and
Saucy Ice Cream Ads Once Again Frozen by the ASA
In the same week that the Pope visited the UK, the ASA banned an ad it deemed could be offensive to some Roman Catholics. The ad, for Antonio Federici ice-cream, which ran in Grazia and The Lady magazines earlier this year, featured an obviously pregnant nun eating Antonio Federici ice-cream alongside the words “Immaculately conceived”.
Asda loses a battle in the “Supermarket Wars”
A double page comparative ad which Asda ran in January 2010 was found to be ambiguous and misleading by the ASA in a recent adjudication since it breached clauses 7.1 and 7.2 (Truthfulness), 18.1 and 18.3 (Comparisons with identified competitors and or their products) and 19.1 (Other Comparisons) of the CAP Code. The ad featured