5/10/12

Todays lesson was a class presentation of teams of two presenting the meaning and examples of Ofcom and ASA. We all had to take down some notes, here are mine;

• ASA – Advertising standards authority
• UKs independent regulator of advertising across all media 
• The ASA apply to the advertising codes – which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice
• Their work includes acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements
• They are a non – statutory organisation & so cannot interpret or enforce legislation
• The ASA is not funded by the British Government, but by a levy (a payment to this board) the advertising industry  
• *statutory (look up word)
• The role of ASA is to ‘regulate the content of advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing in the UK by investigating “complaints made about ads, sales promotions or direct marketing”
• ASA case study – Apple
• Apple claimed to be selling the world’s fastest personal computer – this wasn’t the case, so they were made to re word their slogan

• Ofcom
• The office of communications
• The government approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the UK
• Ofcom has wide ranging powers across the television, radio, telecoms and postal sectors. It has a statutory duty to represent the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting competition and protecting the public from what might be considered harmful or offensive material  
• Case study – BskyB phone hacking incident (New of the world) Gordon brown told Ofcom to launch an investigation