Task 4-Regulation

ASA
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the independent regulator for advertisement in the UK across all media they abide by the codes of advertisement they act on complaints that have been made and keep an eye on the media making sure there is no adverts in the media that can be harmful or misleading to the public. if a member if the public would lie to make a complaint there is a step by step guide on how to go about complaining about an advert, they will then check if someone has made a complaint about that particular advert as well and then you will be contacted with someone who deals with adverts if there are several complaints about the same particular advert they will the look into it and send it to the council who will decide if codes have been breached and if  action should be made against the advert.

on their website the ASA say that they cover different sections of advertisement in the media from TV, radio to mobile and postal making sure all adverts follow the codes that are set and there is nothing that can be harmful to the viewer, there are any codes that must be looked at before an advert can be broadcasted and shown to the public. i research into the codes one of them was the harm and offence code this means that 

1. Advertisements must contain nothing that could cause physical, mental, moral or social harm to persons under the age of 18. 
2.  Advertisements must not cause serious or widespread offence against generally accepted moral, social or cultural standards.
3. Advertisements must not exploit the special trust that persons under the age of 18 place in parents, guardians, teachers or other persons.

  these are three examples of the rules from the code of harm and offence off the ASA website i thought that this was important as it keeps adverts from showing anything that will be harmfull to an audience under the age of 18 

another code i looked into was the prohibited categorises:

1.  breath-testing devices and products that are intended to mask the effects of alcohol
2.  betting systems and products that are intended to facilitate winning games of chance
3. prostitution and sexual massage services

this is a list of what is not acceptable in adverts this is the guide line so that nothing is shown in an advert that can then result into a complaint and the advert having to be taken down.

this advert by the company Paddy Power got over 1000 compalints and was seen as going against the rules of the ASA because it contained humor that was seen to be making fun of blind people and animal cruelty, as there were so many complaints made to the ASA they began to look into this advert although when they did they found that they did not agree with the complaints and found the advert acceptable and following regulations and so the advert was not taken down and remains on television. this is a quote from the ASA about the advert.

"We considered it was unlikely to be seen by most viewers as malicious or to imply that blind people were likely to cause harm to animals whilst playing football.We therefore concluded that the ad was unlikely to be seen as humiliating, stigmatising or undermining to blind people and was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence"-ASA

Ofcom 
Ofcom is a communications regulator, specialising in adverts for television,film, radio and postal services they make the decisions on weather adverts are suitable to show the public this decision is made by the board make up of non-executive chairman,non-executive directors,chief executive and executive directors although this is just one stage of a many that an advert must go through before it can be shown to the public

Ofcom deal with complaints in a very precise may and want to make sure that all members of the public that want to complain about an advert feel they are bing listened to and something is being done about their issue, on there website you are able to see what complaints have been made and what has been done by Ofcom as a result. There are two steps to complaining about and advert to Ofcom at first you must read into their guidelines which tell you how to complain so that you are prepared then you can email someone who works in the organisation informing of what you think is wrong with the advert and giving all your reasoning for the complaint they will then look into your complaint, if nothing comes of your complaint and you are still very unhappy with the advert you can call in and speak to a member of the organisation this way you can get your point across in the clearest form, if this also is unsuccessful and you see no improvement and you believe your complaint is very valid then you can get in contact with the secretary of the organisation and they will tell you if anything can be done with your complaint