ASA swamped after new powers - DecisionMarketing

The Advertising Standards Authority has been inundated with complaints – up by nearly 40% – since being handed extra powers to oversee digital marketing.
The increase is at odds with a survey the watchdog carried out before the changes, which showed the vast majority of 120 websites it studied adhered to its extended advertising code before it was introduced. Only six of them contained marketing communications that were in breach of the ad code, amounting to a compliance rate of 95%.
But the new powers have seen its resources stretched to the limit. An ASA statement said “The extension of the ASA’s online remit to companies’ own marketing communications on their own websites has increased our workload significantly.
“Complaint levels have risen beyond what we forecast and we have had to look at new ways of doing things so that we remain effective and efficient in responding to concerns about ads. But we welcome the response our remit extension has prompted; it clearly demonstrates that there was a regulatory gap online for both consumers and business.
“By recommending that the CAP Code should be extended, industry has helped to promote consumer trust and maintain a level-playing field online,” the statement said.
The changes came into effect in March, meaning ads that appear on company websites and social networking accounts must comply with the Code.
The ASA said it was still collating data on the precise number and nature of complaints it had received since the CAP Code changes came into effect, but it hopes to issue a detailed report on how the changes have affected its operations before the end of the month.
The watchdog had previously said that it had received 4,500 complaints about marketing material between 2008 and March this year that was not subject to the CAP Code rules but which would have been investigated under its widened remit.
In 2009, the regulator dealt with nearly 29,000 complaints and almost 2,400 ads were changed or withdrawn as a result of ASA action.
This represented a 13 per cent fall on previous year, although it was not driven by a new era of responsibility; just a clarification that website content could not be banned.