The Advertising Association promotes the role and rights of responsible advertising and its value to people, society, businesses and the economy. We represent UK advertisers, agencies, media owners and tech companies on behalf of the entire industry, acting as the connection between industry professionals and the politicians and policy-makers.

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The Advertising Association focuses on major industry and policy areas that have huge ramifications on UK advertising. This section contains our work around Brexit, HFSS and gambling advertising, data and e-privacy, trust, the digital charter and our Industrial Strategy campaigns.

Credos is the advertising industry’s independent think tank. It produces research, evidence and reports into the impact and effectiveness of and public and political response to advertising on behalf of UK advertisers in order to enable the industry to make informed decisions.

Front Foot is our industry’s member network of over 50 businesses across UK advertising. It aims to promote the role of responsible advertising and its value to people, society and the economy through a coalition of senior leaders from advertisers, agencies and media owners.

We run a number of events throughout the year, from our annual LEAD summit to the Media Business Course and regular breakfast briefings for our members. We are also the official UK representative for the world’s biggest festival of creativity – Cannes Lions.

Evolving best practice in HFSS Advertising

/ January 21st 2019
High Fat, Salt & Sugar Advertising

New CAP Code rules on HFSS product advertising came into force in July 2017. These now prevent HFSS product ads from targeting under 16s in all media, placing the UK amongst the strictest places in the world for advertising food and soft drinks to children.

Following the publication of Cancer Research UK’s latest report, Stephen Woodford, CEO of the Advertising Association, commented:

“The UK has some of the toughest advertising regulations in the world, driven by the Committees of Advertising Practice and enforced where necessary by the Advertising Standards Authority.

The report states that TV food marketing rules have not changed in ten years. While this may be true for TV, CAP carried out a comprehensive review of HFSS advertising to children in 2016 and the codes were reviewed, updated and strengthened last year. The changes mean that whether children are watching programmes on TV or streaming from the internet they are subject to the same protections, which was not the case previously. As young people’s media consumption habits have changed, so have the regulations governing these media.

“The Advertising Association, its members, and other partners in the industry such as the FDF, remain committed to meeting the challenge of childhood obesity, which is an important public health issue in the UK as it is elsewhere.”