The ASA regulates TV advertising in the UK. ASA stands for the Advertising Standards Authority. It is the UK's independent regulator of advertising across all the media. They apply the 'advertising codes', which are all written by the committees of Advertising practice. ASA acts on complaint they get from the audience, and check the media against misleading, offensive or harmful adverts.
If you think an advert is harmful in any way, you can contacts ASA to make a complaint. You fill in a firm which will ask you for information about the ad you're complaining about, such as the name of the company or organisation; the product or service being advertised and where you have seen it. Providing ASA with as much info as possible will enable them to handle your complaint quicker. Also, you can complain in writing if you wish to do so.
Firstly, you should check whether or not your complaint is already covered by the ASA.
If not, submit your complaint online, telephone or whichever way to us.
They will then provide you with the name of the person who will handle your case and be your point of contact. Often times, they can resolve complaints quickly. Only if it is not so simple, they might have to conduct a formal investigation, which can take longer. If after the investigation the ad breaks the rules they are required to be amended or withdrawn. If they are not, ASA will take steps to make sure their ruling is followed.
In this advert, a few celebrities (Bono, George Clooney, Jessica Alba, Idris Elba) and more unite behind ONE's new campaign to help focus the world's attention again on the famine and food crisis in the Horn of Africa. They swear a lot during the advert, which can act ad a very bad example for people watching this. Elderly people can be disturbed by this whereas teenagers can follow in their footsteps and think swearing is ok to do. I think the regulators were indeed right to ban this. It does set a bad example and young people might think it is ok to swear as a lot of celebrities did in the advert. Even though there is already a lot of swearing going on on TV, we can it by getting rid of this one advert. It is a serious matter, but I am sure there are other ways they can get people's attention to get their message across.
