A day in the life of the Compliance team

07 September 2005

As welcome as a knock on the door from the Big Bad Wolf, the Compliance team’s letters are rarely greeted with a smile by advertisers.  More often thannot, we ask for ads to be pulled and changes to be made to claims and images.  In one day, a beautifully orchestrated campaign costing thousands can come to a sudden halt.

But, of course, we don’t pick up any old ad.  As we scan more than 1,500 ads in the day’s papers and magazines, we look out for any that include an unfounded claim, whether for miracle cures for baldness or for pills that make the weight drop off, or fall foul of the Code with technical breaches.  Yes, all of us in the team get to read our favourite papers and magazines.  And we get paid for it! 

But we tend to pay more attention to the ads than to the articles or photos.  Each morning, after cutting out the ads, we send letters and e-mails to all those advertisers who have breached the Code, asking them to send an assurance that they’ll pull the ad or have it changed.  And then we tell the paper or magazine in which the ad has appeared.

Throughout the morning, calls will come in from advertisers about their ads.  Some ask about how they should change their copy, others want to send in evidence. We answer their questions and encourage them to consult the CAP Copy Advice team for help in revising their ads.

If that was all we did, life would be easy. On the average day, as well as taking up problems, we juggle a range of projects and surveys.  As I write this, we’re looking at the advertising of food and phone package prices.  We’ve just successfully wrapped up several instances of the misleading advertising of flights as “free” whereas, in fact, taxes were payable and of the omission of clear prices in the advertising of mobile phone downloads.  And,coming thick and fast across the office, are referrals from the ASA Complaints and Investigations teams: concluded investigations that need the advertisers chased for an assurance of compliance and public complaints that have already been investigated and upheld yet ads apparently continue to appear.

Also, we act against those companies that refuse to play by the rules. We might send an Ad Alert to the media, asking them to speak to the Copy Advice team before accepting some ads.  In extreme circumstances, we bring advertisers in for meetings and explore with them how they can better comply with the Code or, far less frequently, refer them to the Office of Fair Trading, a sanction Sport Newspapers and US-Eurolink, to name but two, have fallen foul of.

As the day ends, we file away the day’s papers and magazines.  It’s not long now before the next day’s delivery.