Misha Sillifant
ASA
The ASA are an organisation who takes responsibility on checking that adverts are suitable to be shown on TV. They constantly deal with complaints and check the media for adverts that could be seen as offensive or harmful to an audience. They follow the codes which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practise to make sure every advert has the correct content to be shown on TV.
Ofcom are a protection organisation and are the communications regulator in the UK. Their job is to protect people from scams and sharp practices while making sure they get the best from their communications service. Ofcom also directs you to the ASA, on their sight, if you wish to complain about an advert on Ofcom’s behalf.
ATVOD is an independent service which ensures that On Demand Programme Services are suitable and enjoyable for audiences by using the protection required by the law. They take great care in making sure that the Communications Act 2003 is not in any way broken.
Twentieth Century Fox Film Company had 119 complaints on a TV ad for the cinema release of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. This advert was shown on ITV during the World Cup Semi-Final at 9:50pm. The scene showed an ape picking up a gun and shooting two men who were sitting on sandbags. The major complaints that it received were that people believed that the ad was inappropriate for children and that it might not have been placed at the right time as a young audience might have been watching the football. A large number of people also found the advert violent or distressing and discussed whether the ad irresponsibly condoned violence. However the ad was a one-off which was to promote the film and engage the audience. It was also placed after the watershed so audiences should know content after 9 might not be suitable for children and the film was also a 12A. For these reasons the ad wasn’t banned by the ASA.
"Moonpig flowers, perfect for any occasion with free next-day delivery and a free personalised Moonpig card. Because it's great to know who your flowers are from, but it's even better knowing they're for you. And now with beautiful Britishflowers" was the original voice over in this advert. However the last line has now been changed to "beautiful flowers from moonpig." This is because the ASA got one complaint about it as the flowers shown weren't grown in the UK so they were accused of having miss leading content. The ASA told Moonpig.com Ltd to ensure that "in future advertising which made claims for the provenance of flowers that it was made clear what flowers they referred to."
I think the ASA have some trends in what they ban, mostly adverts which promote violence, have sex references or have false fact/advertisements are the ones which finally are banned. The ASA also ban things depending on the watershed. They also judge an advert by whether it is suitable for children or could be offensive to them and whether it was on before the watershed is also a major factor that they lookout for. For example if an advert got many complaints for not being suitable for children yet was broadcasted after the watershed then they may not ban it for this reason of parents should know the content shown after this time might not be suitable for children.
However the ASA don’t always just ban an advert for the amount of complaints it got, this is seen as sometimes adverts can have as little as 1 complaint yet the advert is still banned if the content is bad enough. This was also seen in a Paddy Power advert as it got many complaints but wasn’t taken down because the ASA didn’t prove it to be bad enough due to the editing, yet it caused many people to be unhappy with it.
The ASA often ban adverts that are stating false information about a product, an example of this was Amazon Prime as they didn’t mention that after their 30 day free trail that you would started getting charged straight away so many people got charged for something they didn’t want.