Establishing new advertising self-regulatory schemes: A comparison of the UK and Australian approaches

Advertising is the most visible element of modern marketing, and an importa nt component of trading. Ir is also an activity often accused by its critic s of being intrusive and pervasive. Such accusations are nor easily refuted by a worldwide industry which spends billions of dollars each year reachin g and persuading its target markets through daily bombardment of thousands of ads in most developed countries. When advertising does offend mislead, o r is untruthful, a structure needs to be in place in order to provide prote ction to all parties and, in most cases, a country's legal system is comple mented by a self-regulatory scheme. Self-regulation is a common approach to controlling conduct or behaviour in society and, indeed, Australian advert isers have opted for this system of control for more than 60 years.