Ms Orla Twomey:

Good morning. I thank the Vice Chairman and members of the committee for the invitation to present on the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland, ASAI. I am accompanied this morning by my colleague, Mr. Michael Lee.

The ASAI, established in 1981 by the advertising industry, sets, enforces and regulates the highest standards of advertising in Ireland in the interests of consumers, society and of the advertising industry. The ASAI structure comprises a board of 15 directors, an independent complaints committee comprising 14 members and an executive for strategic and operational undertakings. The basic premise of the ASAI code is that of the International Chamber of Commerce’s marketing code, namely, all advertising should be legal, decent, honest and truthful. The ASAI code, in its seventh edition, was the subject of wide consultation with Departments, including the Departments for Health and Communications, Climate Action and Environment, non-governmental organisations, interest groups and the advertising industry, as well as a public consultation process. The code takes account of national and European legislation affecting advertising. Reviewing the advertising codes in other jurisdictions ensures that we are informed by global best practice.

In its 37 years, ASAI has examined over 30,000 advertising complaints, resulting in 7,500 adjudications. Advertising that is in breach of the code has to be amended or withdrawn and, crucially, our media members enforce our decisions in order that advertisements in breach are no longer published.

Moreover, we publish the complaints committee’s adjudications which is a "name and shame" sanction.

Adverse publicity is unwelcome to advertisers and generally has a remedial effect on future advertising, as negative publicity can result in penalties through reputational impact and reduced return on advertising spend. Ultimately, we experience a compliance rate of 98%.

The code has general and truthfulness rules, as well as a range of specific issue and sectoral rules. The code provides particular care for advertising that depicts, is addressed to and likely to be of interest to children. For instance, there are restrictions on advertisement content for food products targeted directly at preschool and primary school children. For children under 16 years, advertisements, except those for fresh fruit or fresh vegetables should not seem to encourage children to eat or drink a product only to take advantage of a promotional offer and should not encourage children to eat more than they otherwise would. Advertisements for alcohol products should not be directed at children or in any way encourage them to start drinking and should not use or refer to identifiable heroes or heroines of the young. It is evident from complaints received, and our compliance monitoring, that food and alcohol advertisers have demonstrated a high level of compliance with the ASAI code.

Notwithstanding the level of child obesity issues, the ASAI receives very few related complaints. In the past five years as few as 9% of total complaints received related to food advertising, with complaints primarily made on grounds of being misleading or containing offensive content.

The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK carried out a consultation on food advertising to children in 2016. It stated, following the consultation, the evidence indicated that advertisements promoting foods containing high amount of fat, salt and sugar have a modest effect on children's immediate food preferences. The evidence also indicated that parental and peer influence, schools policy and sedentary lifestyles were the main factors that drive obesity.

The ASAI's approach is to collaborate broadly. For example, we were a key stakeholder in the development of the Department of Health's voluntary codes of practice for non-broadcast media advertising and marketing of food and non-alcoholic beverages that were introduced earlier this year. The ASAI's code is child-centric. Our systems are robust and compliance is high. We actively consider developments in the market and introduce new code rules, when appropriate. The ASAI's approach is to engage with stakeholders to ensure that the code is as relevant as possible.

I thank the members for their time and for the opportunity to present to the committee.