Misleading advertising is consistently the most complained about issue for European consumers, as shown in our annual statistics of complaints handled by national ad self-regulatory organisations (SROs). Every year for the past 5 years, at least 58% of complaints lodged almost exclusively by consumers for free with SROs have taken issue with purportedly misleading advertising. In about a third of cases, these complaints are well founded, after SROs have conducted their own independent investigations. It is therefore a natural priority for EASA and its members to tackle misleading advertising.
To prevent it, robust marketing codes detail provisions on issues like “honesty” and “truthfulness”. These codes are designed to prevent misleading claims, whether they are direct or implicit, or by omission, ambiguity, or exaggeration. All national codes are based on international standards and go far and beyond legal requirements promoting high content standards and helping ensure responsible advertising. EASA’s 26 national advertising codes enforced by the 28 self-regulatory organisations in Europe are based on the International Chamber of Commerce’s Advertising and Marketing Communications Code (ICC Code). The ICC Code contains several articles covering extensively misleading claims, including:
- Article 5 on Truthfulness
- Article 6 on Substantiation (detailing that any claim made in an ad must come with proper, scientific, and verifiable evidence available upon demand)
- Article 12 on Automatic renewals
- Specific rules on influencer marketing (article 18), sales promotion (article A3), and environmental claims (article D2)
Advertising self-regulatory organisations (SROs) regulate ad content across all media according to local rules, inspired by the ICC Code. SROs develop, implement, and enforce high content standards for specific products with stakeholders’ full support. The ultimate goal of collective ad self-regulation is to foster trust, which in turn helps create a trusted and mature competitive market. The exact type of ethical rules, guiding instruments, or standards that SROs develop is discussed and decided at local level with the concerned brands, both global and local ones. The codes complement national legislation and are enforced by national self-regulatory organisations. When practices are fraudulent or illegal, many self-regulatory organisations can rely on a legal backstop. This in turn allow statutory authority to issue fines, launch sanctions, or impose judicial measures against rogue advertisers, agencies, or media actors.
At the EU level, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) and the Misleading and Comparative Advertising Directive (MCAD) both address misleading advertising in the context of the Single Market. The Commission has also developed specific regulations for certain sectors, and regularly conducts enforcement sweeps to identify breaches of consumer law.
