Letting Children be Children
16.
Research commissioned by Credos found that advertising and marketing was expressed as a concern by 43 per cent of parents, in the bottom third of a list of 14 issues, and that there is an assumption amongst parents that advertising to children is well—regulated, is fairly mild and reflects society (Advertising Association, 2011). Other Credos research also suggests that further information on regulatory protections and the benefits of advertising (for instance, that it funds many 'free—to—use' services such as social networking sites and commercial television programmes, and that children value the information on new products) tends to mitigate concerns (Credos, 2011).
17.
Our qualitative research with parents also found that, on the whole, provided there are effective provisions in advertising regulation to protect children, as discussed below, the benefits of advertising and marketing to children outweigh perceived risks and harms (Define, 2011).
"We know they have to work by certain standards and rules, [advertising] doesn't bother us too much – there won't be a kid with a cigarette in her hand. So knowing there are those rules and standards makes you worry less about it.
Parent, Review qualitative research
Effectiveness of existing advertising regulation
18.
The system of advertising regulation in the UK is widely seen to be effective. For instance, a review carried out for the European Commission in 2006 found that systems such as that in the UK, with a clear division of work between government and non—government regulators, seem to be highly effective. In its assessment of effectiveness, the review gave a strong rating to the UK system (Hans Bredow lnstitut, 2006). There are explicit provisions in the advertising codes regarding children, enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority and applying to advertising across all media.
19.
The numbers of complaints to the ASA regarding children and advertising are relatively low. Over the course of 2008, 2009 and 2010, 1955 advertisements attracted 8139 complaints about their impact on, or portrayal of, children.To put these numbers into context, the ASA received 80,600 complaints about 42,600 advertisements in total during the same period. Just 4.6 per cent of the advertisements which received complaints overall did so on the grounds of their impact on children (drawing 10 per cent of the complaints) (Advertising Standards Authority, 2011(1)).
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