New 5 year strategy launched by the ASA

The ASA has today launched its new 5 year strategy to 2023. It covers 6 strands, with a particular focus on online regulation:

1. People

The first strand considers people – the ASA will be open to listening to everyone i.e. expanding the scope to beyond complainants and including new ways of listening such as research, data driven intelligence, machine learning etc.

2. Online

With two-thirds of the cases reviewed by the ASA in 2017 being online ads, the ASA will look to strengthen online regulation, including a continued focus on misleading advertising and inappropriate targeting, thought leadership and working with large platform providers with a view to protecting people from irresponsible ads and social media interactions about irresponsible ads.

3. Effectiveness

Improving effectiveness will include recruiting and retaining people from diverse backgrounds; high quality and proactive projects to tackle ads that cause detriment to people e.g. protecting vulnerable groups, such as children and young people and adequately limiting their exposure to age-restricted ads in sectors like food, gambling and alcohol; improvements in cross-border regulation; and lighter touch options for people to alert the ASA of their concerns.

4. Buy-in

The ASA emphasise the benefits of regulation by the ASA and seek greater buy-in from the social influencer community; online only advertisers; brands; retailers and small businesses.

5. Enforcement

The ASA will look to being more proactive in investigating and removing non-compliant content, particularly online; and use of more technological tools.

6. Independence

The ASA will continue to regulate effectively and without fear or favour.

For more information, visit the ASA's release here.

For more information on this topic, please contact Sonal Patel Oliva or your usual contact within Fieldfisher's Brand Development Team.