Self-regulatory organisations are funded by the advertising industry, which in itself is comprised of the advertisers, the advertising agencies and the media publishing the ads.

All self-regulatory organisations world-wide have the same goal: to make sure that advertising doesn’t mislead or offend anyone so that consumer trust in advertising is not damaged. These organisations do this by independently applying an Ethical Code for Advertising.

The fact that self-regulatory organisations are funded by the advertising industry creates an even higher incentive for these advertising watchdogs to oversee the code independently as they tend to be scrutinised more by consumer groups than organisations that draw their funds from governments.