In January the ASA launched a two-phase cross-media ad campaign to raise awareness that from March 2011 its remit was being extended to cover companies’ own marketing communications on their own websites and in other, third-party space under their control e.g. advertiser-controlled pages on social network sites.

The initial business-to-business phase of the campaign ran in until February. Designed to alert website owners of the ASA’s extended online remit, it called on advertisers to ensure that marketing messages on their websites were legal, decent, honest and truthful. The second, consumer facing part of the campaign (the ASA’s first in five years) went live in mid-March and will continue to appear periodically as a filler-campaign until August.

The ads were produced by AMV BBDO, with OMD UK coordinating planning and helping to secure donated media space and airtime. The ASA extends its thanks to both agencies for their expertise, generosity and hard-work on the campaign, delivered on an entirely pro bono basis. The campaign itself has relied entirely on free space donated by media owners, and the ASA is hugely grateful for industry’s support of the self-regulatory system, manifest in the significant media schedule donated to date. 

Lynsay Taffe, ASA Director of Communications, Marketing and Public Affairs, said: “You would be hard pushed not to have heard or seen an ASA ad on radio, in the cinema, outdoor, online or in print. We are enormously grateful to AMV BBDO, OMD UK, media owners and industry bodies for getting behind our campaign, and for showing advertising self-regulation at its collaborative, responsible best”. 

(Update article)

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