Regulatory Bodies

Regulation
The three main organisations dealing with regulation in the advertising industry:

• ASA- the self-regulatory organisation of the advertising industry in the UK. All the advertisers in the UK have agreed to abide by its authority. Anyone who thinks that advertising products have broken a code or the law can complain to the ASA
• Ofcom- the regulatory body of the communications industries set up by the British government. It has a responsibility to regulate broadcast advertisements
• BBFC- has the responsibility of regulating cinema advertising. Audio-visual products shown in cinemas are given similar ratings to the films they accompany.

www.asa.org.uk/rulings/adjudications.aspx

Stub Hub (UK) Ltd are a ticket exchange and resale company. It provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theatre and other live entertainment events. It has grown from the largest secondary-market ticket marketplace in the UK into the world's largest ticket marketplace. This company had a complaint filed against them on the ASA website that "A poster ad for a third-party reseller that claimed to guarantee genuine tickets would always be sold was misleading." The complaint was about a poster ad for StubHub, seen on a train on 15 November 2019, featured the text “THAT KNEE SLIDE ALONG THE PLATFORM MOMENT”. Smaller text underneath stated “Guaranteed genuine tickets to the match can do that”. Below the text was a large image of a woman shouting in excitement with her arms spread out against a backdrop of the StubHub logo. Text at the bottom right-hand corner stated “That StubHub Feeling” followed by StubHub’s website address FanFair Alliance, a campaign group, who understood that as a third-party reseller, StubHub were unable to guarantee that the tickets they sold were genuine, challenged whether the claim “Guaranteed genuine tickets” was misleading. To which StubHub (UK) Ltd said that consumers would understand “genuine” to mean that tickets were not fake or fraudulent, but would not assume that they were definitely valid for entry. StubHub said that as a ticketing marketplace platform, they neither owned nor sold tickets listed on their website but that tickets were sold by the sellers who used their website. Sellers were only allowed to sell valid tickets and StubHub had systems in place, such as algorithms and automated systems, to detect fraud. They said that most sellers were not paid the proceeds of their sale until after the relevant event had passed, which reduced the incentive to sell fraudulent tickets. Therefore, ASA said that the ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told StubHub (UK) Ltd not to use the claim “Guaranteed genuine tickets” where there was a risk that buyers might not be able to gain entry into an event.

1. I think that the ASA followed through with the correct actions because if the company are unable to actually guarantee that the ticket is genuine and the customer are therefore guaranteed to be able to get into the event with that ticket then they shouldn't be misleading people by saying "guaranteed genuine tickets to the match can do that".

Know It

1. Advertising campaigns are built to accomplish a particular objective or a set of objectives. Such objectives usually include establishing a brand, raising brand awareness, aggrandising the rate of sales. The rate of success or failure in accomplishing these goals is reckoned via effectiveness measures.
2. Advertisers use many segments to define audiences. For example: they may use demographics and psychographics.
3. USP stands for Unique Selling Point/Proposition
4. One of the organisations that are responsible for regulating the advertising industry is the Advertising Standards Authority(ASA)