Read all about it! National Press Survey 2004
08 June 2005
A National Press survey published by the ASA Compliance team has revealed an encouragingly high 99.3% compliance rate with the CAP Code. The survey was undertaken over a six month period between March and August 2004. The objectives of the survey were to assess compliance rates, ensure that a level-playing field is maintained for marketers and identify problems and bring them to the attention of the ASA or CAP.
The Compliance team monitors marketing communications, follows up ASA adjudications and takes action by having ads that break the Code removed from the media. The team conducts surveys of specific industry sectors or media to assess compliance rates, to ensure a level-playing field for marketers and identify problems and bring them to the attention of the ASA or CAP.
Selecting, at random, one week in each month over a six month period, the ASA Compliance team examined 33,117 display advertisements and reader offers. Duplicates were removed so that 15,512 different advertisements came under scrutiny. The survey identified only obvious breaches of the Code and found 102 ads, representing 0.66% of the total. The Compliance team contacted the advertiser or publisher of each of the 102 ads and asked for assurance that the ad would be withdrawn or amended.
The newspapers examined in the survey included all the national broadsheets and tabloids; both types had similar compliance rates. The product sector with the highest percentage of breaches was health and beauty, for which 21 (3.5%) of the 599 such advertisements examined were in breach. Yet, of the 1,161 ads placed by the computers and telecoms industry, only two were in breach of the Code.
Significantly, 75% of the 102 breaches were technical ones in which a breach occured because of a design flaw in the advertisement or an omission in content. Only 25% of breaches occurred because of substantive reasons, where the advertiser did not provide evidence backing up the claims. The code clause most commonly breached involved distance selling, which often applies to reader offers.
The number of advertisements found in breach of the Code fell on a month-on-month basis during the survey, suggesting the breaches brought to the attention of newspapers during the first month were not repeated and underlining the effectiveness of the Compliance team’s work.