Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)

http://www.asa.org.uk/

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UK's independent regulator of advertising across all media, including TV, internet, sales promotions and direct marketing. The ASA's role is to ensure adverts are legal, decent, honest and truthful by applying the Advertising Codes.
An aim at the ASA is to ensure that consumers do not just enjoy the ads they see, but they can trust them too by enforcing advertising codes written by the Committee of Advertising Practise.

The ASA cover the following advertising:
- Magazine and newspaper advertisements
- Radio and TV commercials (not programmes or programme sponsorship)
- Television Shopping Channels
- Posters on legitimate poster sites (not fly posters)
- Leaflets and brochures
- Cinema commercials
- Direct mail
- Door drops and circulars
- Advertisements on the Internet, including banner and display ads and paid-for (sponsored) search (not claims on companies’ own websites)
- Commercial e-mail and SMS text message ads
- Ads on CD ROMs, DVD and video, and faxes
- We regulate sales promotions, such as special offers, prize draws and competitions wherever they appear.

The ASA work alongside Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and Broadcasting Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) to help deliver a comprehensive regulatory approach.

The main idea of ASA that will affect my film poster and magazine article will be the protection of children. A priority of ASA was to look into ads for horror films and their potential to scare children. ASA try to ensure children are not exposed to potentially harmful or inappropriate advertising that could cause physical, mental or moral harm.

Although my genre is primarily suspense there may be an element of horror in it so I need to ensure the publication of my poster and article will not be readily available for children, the classification of my film using the BBFC guidelines should hopefully restrict children viewing the film, poster and magazine article.

If I was to produce a advert to be broadcast on the TV I would have to make sure that the advert is not scheduled or placed in or around children’s programmes or in or around programmes likely to be seen by significant numbers of children which would be unlikely for the genre of thr film and its rating.

When creating my magazine article and my advertising poster I need to ensure that neither will be harmful or offensive by taking into consideration the generally excepted moral, social and cultural standards to avoid the risk of causing harm and serious or widespread offence.