November saw the launch of the revamped website of the TV ad vetting body, the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre. We report on the underwhelming result and on possible BACC/Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice rivalry.
Topic: TV advertising
Who: The Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre
Where: Southwark
When: November 2004
What happened:
The Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre ("BACC"), which pre-vets all advertising on commercial UK television on behalf of the television networks before it is broadcast to ensure its compliance with the relevant codes and laws, launched its revamped website.
This was keenly anticipated by ad regulation watchers, particularly as it was trailered as featuring for the first time the substantially revised and updated BACC "Notes of guidance".
The previous edition of the Notes was extremely useful to all those looking for further insights into the proper interpretation of the TV advertising code.
Other delights promoted to feature on the new website included European and Ofcom news pages as well as a brand new facility enabling advertisers to submit for BACC vetting pre-production and post-production material online.
All well and good, but when launch day came and bacc.org.uk was visited, this was something of a let-down. The new Notes of Guidance were still not available and the European and Ofcom news pages did not seem to feature.
Why this matters:
As the BACC itself admitted in its recent quarterly newsletter "Clear", the launch of the new Advertising Standards Authority, handling TV ad complaints as well as print ad beefs, looks to have caught the BACC a little by surprise.
With concerns continuing as to possible clashes between the pre-publication roles of the BACC and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice and the BCAP already drawing up guidelines on the interpretation of the recently published revised code for alcohol ads on TV-when traditionally such guidance has come from the BACC-the BACC would be well advised to get its act together as soon as possible and get those Notes of Guidance up on line.
