The ASA has no power over the people in power

The Advertising Standards Authority, the UK’s independent regulator for advertising across all media, received 374 complaints about “misleading, inaccurate and discriminatory” campaigns in the run up to the recent EU Referendum.

Campaigns including the Leave campaign’s £350 million pledge to the NHS on the side of their bright red battle bus and Nigel Farage’s infamous “Breaking Point”, anti-immigration poster featuring images of refugees queuing at the Slovenian border, prompted much derision and disgust and added to the general feeling that both sides of the argument exaggerated, misled and lied to the general public throughout the debate.

In the interest of balance complaints totalled:

Leave: 177

Remain: 45

But it wasn’t just the main campaigning organisations that face criticism. A poster from Operation Black Vote, an organisation dedicated to encouraging political and civic engagement by black and ethnic minorities and tackling all forms of racism, was itself accused of racism by featuring a “white thug” in one of their campaigns which drew 145 complaints.

General campaigns promoting the referendum saw a further seven complaints.

Despite this, the ASA is completely powerless to act as political advertising is exempt from the UK advertising code.

Citing their lack of clout over political advertising The ASA recently stated on their website: “Until 1999, non-broadcast political advertising was subject to some rules in the Advertising Code. However, following the 1997 General Election, the Committee of Advertising Practice (the body that writes the Advertising Code) made a decision to exclude political advertising from the ASA’s remit because of several factors that risked bringing advertising regulation in general into disrepute.

“These factors included the short, fixed timeframes over which elections run (i.e. the likelihood that complaints subject to ASA investigation would be ruled upon after an election has taken place). Also, the absence of consensus between the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties to bring political advertising wholly within the scope of the Code played its part in CAP taking the decision to exclude all of it.”

Some might say that advertising, marketing and PR professionals have always had a tenuous relationship with the truth. But if you really want to push the boundaries, forget those fast moving consumer goods or slippery financial service companies, politics might just be the area where you can let your creative spirit roam free and not let the facts get in the  way of a good campaign.