General Rules

Last modified on November 1, 2011 | print

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The advertising industry is guided by a general principle that all advertising must be ‘legal, honest, decent and truthful’. Marketing communications must be sufficiently clear and must not mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise. This includes providing any significant information (such as conditions of an offer) in text which is of a sufficient size for it to be clear to the consumer.

Adverts have to comply with various rules:

  • Primary legislation (i.e. Acts of Parliament) and secondary legislation (i.e. Regulations passed by Statutory Instrument)
  • Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) code called the “British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Directive Marketing” (http://www.cap.org.uk/cap/codes/), which covers all non-broadcast advertising including online and mobile display adverts and search marketing.
  • Relevant industry-led practice codes (e.g. Portman Group code on the advertising of alcoholic beverages)

For the purposes of compliance, the law and the CAP code have the same standing and all campaigns must meet the applicable standards as a minimum.