ASA publishes its annual report for 2023

The Advertising Standards Authority (the "ASA") and the Committees of Advertising Practice ("CAP") published their annual report for the year 2023 on 11 April 2024. In a year that saw a significant shift away from complaints-led investigations towards more proactive ASA-led monitoring and enforcement, the ASA and CAP secured the amendment or withdrawal of 27,378 ads.

The report sets out the ASA's and the CAP's work in a range of areas, focusing on: AI-assisted collective ad regulation and its Active Ad Monitoring system, climate change, body image, youth vaping and the Intermediary and Platform Principles. This blog post sets out our key takeaways from the report.

AI-assisted collective ad regulation and the ASA's Active Ad Monitoring system

The ASA has renewed its mission to prioritise people, in particular vulnerable people, by continuing to regulate all forms of online advertising in a more proactive manner, thanks in part to the new AI-based Active Ad Monitoring system.

Active Ad Monitoring captures and processes large volumes of ads from various channels (social media, search and display). The system then applies machine learning models to help prioritise the more problematic ads and conducts a final analysis of the content to help understand trends in compliance before the ads are shared with experts for review. Although Active Ad Monitoring is still being developed, it is already capable of processing 500,000 ads per month.

92% of the ads amended or withdrawn following ASA action resulted from the ASA's proactive work, much of it enabled by Active Ad Monitoring.

Climate change and environmental claims

The ASA has prioritised issues and sectors which have been identified by the UK Climate Change Committee as being key to the delivery of the UK’s legal target to be a net zero economy by 2050. The report highlights the ASA's enforcement action to tackle misleading claims in the energy and transport sectors (e.g. sustainability claims for airlines and misleading communications by oil and gas companies).

The ASA has determined four key areas on which consumers need more information when it comes to waste:

1. the product composition and what parts of the product are or are not compostable;
2. the disposal location for the product, in particular whether the product can be thrown away at home or a specific location;
3. the length of time it takes for the product to break down fully; and
4. whether the outcome of disposal of the product produces harmful microplastics.

The report also points to the ASA's newly published research and guidance on recycling, biodegradable and compostable claims. In early 2024, the ASA expects to publish new research on claims in ads for meat, dairy and plant-based substitutes.

The ASA has been working in partnership with the Competition and Markets Authority on shared priorities, such as claims for greener homes, with the Financial Conduct Authority on green finance, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs on food labelling and the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, as well as a broader panel of partners on a review of the complex challenges underpinning carbon neutrality.

The Director of Complaints and Investigations at the ASA noted that "it's not always easy to make environmental claims given the complexities that can arise". We expect this to be a hot area of ASA enforcement action which will continue in 2024. For more information on the factors that businesses need to consider when making claims relating to their environmental impact, please see our blog post: Clean, green marketing strategies: Navigating tougher restrictions on environmental claims in advertising.

Body image

The ASA has a history of acting on complaints about ads that portray negative body images, such as the promotion of unhealthily thins models or the exploitation of insecurities. The use of digitally altered images in ads is a growing concern for the regulator, prompting it to hold two roundtable events on this issue in 2023. The first was attended by members of Parliament, academia, the advertising and publishing industries, and the third sector. The second focused on giving a voice to young people, deemed to be the demographic most vulnerable to body image related harms, to hear their own experiences and observations on the matter. The considerations of evidence and insights of the sessions will be published in 2024.

Another key issue on which the ASA has taken action is the trend of travelling abroad to have cosmetic surgery. The recent media coverage of the trend has shown the serious complications this could lead to for UK consumers as well as the negative impact it is having on NHS resources. ASA investigations found ads trivialising the decision to have cosmetic surgery, pressuring consumers and omitting material information about pre-consultations, as well as exploiting mothers’ insecurities around body image by using the term “mommy makeover”.

Youth vaping

UK advertising regulations restrict the advertisement of e-cigarettes containing nicotine in certain media, except if they are licensed as medicines. These restrictions include not being targeted at, or likely to appeal particularly to, under 18s.

In 2023, the ASA published several rulings concerning ads appearing in prohibited media. It issued an enforcement notice addressed to over 150 vaping brands making clear that TikTok should not be used as a platform for their advertising. This measure has proven successful, as the ASA noted monitoring since then has suggested a decrease in prohibited content of such kind on the platform. In 2024, the ASA intends to issue a new enforcement notice that addresses most, if not all, of the key players in vaping, covering all social media platforms and all types of advertising.

Intermediary and Platform Principles

The ASA and members of the IAB UK (Adform, Amazon Ads, Google, Index Exchange, Magnite, Meta, Snap Inc., TikTok, Twitter and Yahoo) have collaborated on creating the 10 principles featured in the Intermediary and Platform Principles ("IPP") pilot that ran for a year from June 2022. The pilot aimed to bring consistency and formalise the cooperation between the ASA and these companies to promote advertisers' awareness of the advertising rules online and help the ASA in achieving compliance once an ad has been found in breach.

The participating companies provided information to the ASA on how they operated in accordance with the principles, showing the various methods and pathways employed by different companies to meet the same criteria. The ASA's annual report noted that "IPP now offers a tried-and-tested way in which platforms and intermediaries can play a part, and be seen to play a part, in supporting the ASA to help secure responsible advertising online".