Instrument of self-regulation

Title:

BCAP Advertising Guidances Notes

Entry into force:

01.11.2004

Type of document:

Guidance

Geographical scope:

United Kingdom

Content-related scope:

Related areas:

consumer rights,
youth protection

The principal target of these Guidelines is 'supers'. This is a term of art strictly applying to text superimposed onto advertisements to provide additional information, usually because it is required to be there for legal or regulatory purposes (the 'small print'). Typically the prominence of such text is minimised because it forms no part of what the advertiser wants most to say. This can defeat the consumer protection objective of including the text in the first place and the purpose of these Guidelines is to prevent this by setting minimum standards of acceptability.

With limited exceptions (see 5e.) these Guidelines, however, apply to all text on screen. Because viewers are not able immediately to identify and focus on which text carries important qualifying messages and which is less important, they must be given the opportunity to read everything. For the purposes of these Guidelines, text includes numbers.

These Guidelines do not apply to text or videotext services or, with the exception of Article 10, to subtitling.

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Available on the website since October 30, 2008