The Advertising Standards Authority publishes its adjudications on complaints received each Wednesday …
… and I can’t wait to read them.
Why?
Not because I like reading them, but rather because I read these with a sense of disappointment of what might have been.
Understanding the advertising rules and implementing them can be a challenge, especially when there are several factors to consider:
- Your products/services
- Your target audience
- What type of advert to run – a tv/radio splash, an email campaign, an exciting competition?
The thing is I know that if those brands had asked me to help, their name would not be on the ASA website, nor would they have suffered the embarrassment of appearing in newspapers and news feeds as an upheld case.
The rules are there for a reason, but they can be confusing. If you can get your head around them, the problems mount when you try to apply them to your business.
Nobody can do everything in a business, sometimes because it’s an area you don’t like (I leave the accounts side of mine to my husband) and sometimes because you don’t have the skills.
So sometimes you have to ask an expert. You have an accountant as it makes sense to pay to ensure your accounts are accurate and up to date.
Paying to ensure your ads comply with the ASA codes is no different.