I filed the following complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority Society this morning. (I hope this post is self explanatory. 🙂 )
This complaint is made under principle 3 (No advertisement should be misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive the consumer).
It has come to my attention that the Advertising Standards Authority is not an authority in any meaningful sense and that the “Advertising Standards Authority” is actually a Society. The name of this Society is misleading. The name would cause members of the public to believe that the Advertising Standards Authority is a government empowered agency.
The Advertising Standards Society also misleadingly issues members of the public with “rulings” (definition: an authoritative decision or pronouncement, esp. one made by a judge).
It is reasonable to expect that many people have complied with the Society’s “rulings” because they were misled by the name of the society and thought there was an obligation to comply with “rulings”. It is also reasonable to expect that many members of the public have incurred costs in compliance as a result of the misleading language.
Can you please investigate?
When I get a response from them I will post it here.
Resources:
ASAS Incorporation Details
ASAS Online Complaint Form
I have not followed this case, nor do I have any knowledge of this ‘Authority’, so I don’t have much to say here except that if what you say is true, then I agree with Richard that this is an excellent contribution to the fight Reed. That is a very sleazy and deceptive name they gave themselves… an Absolute hypocrisy for them to condemn that Church for ‘Falsehoods’! Well done.
My email response to the ASA.
The ASA complaints process…
Um, Reed, it’s not called the Names Standards Authority.
It’s called the Advertising Standards Authority.
The complaint has to relate first and foremost to a piece of advertising.
An advertisement is generally defined as a form of paid announcement.
I know that nothing will ever dissuade you from your Mission of Justice, but are you beginning to see perhaps why the “normal process” might not be initiated?
Put another way, if you sent them a banana, would you expect them to provide a ruling on it?
Daniel
I’ve still not heard back from the ASA to advise if they are going to follow the normal process with respect to my complaint.
Are you informing me (officially or unofficially) that the ASA will not be following the normal process with respect to my complaint?
I have no idea what is happening with your complaint.
However are you complaining about an advertisement? It seems not. You are complaining about the name of an organisation. As such, I doubt very much whether it falls under the ambit of the ASA in the first place.
Did this occur to you?
Yes it occurred to me.
Don’t all of your advertisements include the misleading name?
Did you send an advertisement in, Reed?
No, I didn’t send in a specific advertisement. Yes, it had occurred to me that not identifying a specific advertisement might be used to avoid the normal process.
I’m sure the ASA has access to all of its own advertisements but I will identify some advertisements if the ASA need me to.
FYI: The ASA has heard and “ruled” on at least one complaint about a name.
Might have helped if you did.
See what I mean?
There’s nothing to see yet is there?
It looks like the complaints process has now started.
It hasn’t come to Chris Trotter’s attention. See here.
That the ASA is an ASS is hardly an open secret.
Well spotted Richard. The ASA is running a deception which will be costing people money and manipulating them.
But wait…clearly Chris Trotter has also been fooled by those shameless deceivers at the Press Council too! Quick! Alert the authorities…errr, wait a minute…;-)
There’s actually two possibilities here. 1) Trotter knows and understands that there are both government and self-regulatory organisations with roles in our public discourse or 2) Lefty bloggers are as inconsistent and ill-informed as Libby ones.
each time i used to read smaller posts that also clear their motive, and that is also happening with this
article which I am reading at this time.