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ASAI Annual Report 2011
PRESS RELEASE P ASAI Annual Report '11
At the 31st Annual General Meeting of the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) held today, Mr. Edward McCumiskey, B.L., Chairman, in his statement in the Annual Report presented at the meeting, referred to the fact that despite the difficult trading conditions experienced by those involved in the advertising industry in recent years, there was no discernable change in the overall level of compliance shown by advertisers, agencies and the media who support ASAI.
In a separate publication entitled “Setting Standards for 30 Years”, Mr McCumiskey thanked a variety of public bodies for the assistance and advice they had provided to the ASAI. He made special mention of the good working relationship with the Director of Consumer Affairs and the National Consumer Agency. Mr McCumiskey also referred to recent comments of the Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, Mr John Dalli, at a conference held in Brussels on 28th March entitled “Advertising We Care!” The Commissioner had praised advertising self-regulation and the strengthening of advertising self-regulation mechanisms.
The ASAI resolved 1535 formal complaints in 2011. This resulted in 89 advertisements being found to be in breach of the ASAI Code by the independent Complaints Committee, the same number of advertisements as 2010. In 2011, 867 advertisements were the subject of complaints and of those 644 were referred to ASAI on the basis that they were misleading. In relation to the media in which the advertisements appeared, for the first time digital media formed the largest group at 561 advertisements. Complaints relating to broadcast media (TV and radio combined) were at 541. For a number of years broadcast media had given rise to the largest number of advertisements objected to, however, the growth in the level of complaints regarding advertisements in digital media shown in 2011 reflects the general growth of this area.
Details of complaints for the significant sectoral groups are provided at the end of this release.
For further information contact:Orla Twomey, Assistant Chief Executive, ASAI. Tel: 01 613 7040.
The Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) is the self-regulatory body set up by the advertising industry, including advertisers, agencies and media companies, to promote the highest standards of commercial advertising and to enforce the Code of Standards for Advertising, Promotional and Direct Marketing in Ireland, full details of which are available on ASAI’s website at www.asai.ie.
Case Reports on adjudications of the independent Complaints Committee of the ASAI are released in periodic Complaints Bulletins during the year and are also posted on the ASAI website.
| 2011 | 2010 |
| Telecommunications | 265 | 264 |
| Food & Beverages | 256 | 452* |
| Travel & Holidays | 129 | 109 |
| Leisure | 116 | 129 |
| Health & Beauty | 104 | 87 |
| Household | 99 | 100 |
* Over 350 complaints were made about one campaign on the grounds of offensiveness.
A copy of both our Annual Report and “Setting Standards for 30 Years” are available on our website at www.asai.ie. -
http://www.asai.ie/documents/ASAI_ANNUAL%20REPORT%202011.pdf
http://www.asai.ie/documents/ASAI%20-%20Setting%20Standards%20For%2030%20Years%20WEB.pdf