The coverage on September 1st was a little misleading. I guess it was a case of journalists being rushed, and the press release being summarized in a snappy headline. Readers then assume way too much and start complaining.
The first thing to be clear about is that the ASA is in the business of Self-Regulation. It’s not perfect, but if you think it’s big government regulating the internet – think again.
I’ve heard comments like “if China can’t censor the internet, how can the ‘UK government’”.
But, the ASA exists to stop government regulating ads. (Sorry – “to protect children and other consumers”). The Tories threatened internet regulation to protect children in their manifesto. To stop that the ASA has to do it first.
If you don’t think the ASA was watching the Tories closely – read para 2.4 of the ASA plans. They quote the manifesto.
ASA want feedback
One of the first things the ASA says in their own document about this is a consultation. That’s why they won’t actually start tutting at our ads before March 2011.
After March they’ll keep reviewing it. Then they’ll have a big review in Q2 2013
What’s the new stuff they’ll regulate then?
ASA says it aims to regulate
'non paid-for space under an advertiser’s control'That’s important.
User comments, tweets and status updates will only be regulated if they later become part of someone’s marketing campaign.
I expect this will be the bit they get most feedback about.
I can’t see how they can ever prove (with the limited powers they clearly have) that an employee of Brand X was the person who made a comment under the name @BigLiz34.
So that won’t be regulated.
The Big Problem
The ASA only really works with brands that care about their reputation. The ASA can escalate a misleading ad to the Office of Fair Trading, but this is very rare.
Referral only works if you know who the advertiser is. If the website servers are abroad, and the crooked advertiser is hard to locate… nothing will happen.
So what should you do?
1) Read the ASA plans, and give them your feedback.
2) Assume that you haven’t really “already won an iPad”
I mostly agree - although it's important to bear in mind that the official twitter feeds and facebook pages of media owners are pretty much all marketing material - because that's what they exist to do, to market the brand.
ReplyDeleteThe bit that no one's really focusing on is the impact of the new, extended-remit Code on the content - they're too busy panicking about the internet being regulated. In reality, if you're a media owner (and particularly a broadcaster), and your standards for online copy and competitions are drawn largely from your broadcast standards, then you're probably not at any risk of breaching the Code.