In Short
-
Your advertising must follow UK rules, including requirements on truthful claims, fair comparisons and clear labelling of paid or sponsored content.
-
You must take care with influencer posts, online reviews and endorsements to ensure they are genuine, transparent and not misleading.
-
Direct and digital marketing must follow data and privacy rules, including consent, opt-outs and honest representations.
Tips for Businesses
Check every campaign for clear, accurate messaging and ensure any paid or incentivised content is openly disclosed. Put written agreements in place with influencers, keep review processes transparent, and make it easy for customers to opt out of marketing. A quick legal check before publishing will help you avoid issues.
Advertising can play a vital role in helping a business build brand visibility, attract new customers and drive growth. In the UK, advertising is regulated through a combination of general and sector-specific legislation, as well as self-regulatory codes. The growth of digital platforms has increased regulatory scrutiny and introduced new compliance challenges for businesses to understand and carefully address. With significant penalties for non-compliance, including heavy fines, the risk profile for businesses engaging in advertising campaigns is high, and compliance is crucial. This article presents some key examples of advertising rules in the UK and highlights important compliance areas to help businesses navigate regulations and manage risks. Given that advertising law is broad and complex, businesses should seek tailored legal advice before launching each advertising campaign to help ensure compliance and mitigate risk.
The Legal and Regulatory Framework Governing Advertising
Advertising in the UK operates under both legal and industry codes:
- Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA): This Act governs consumer-facing advertising and marketing activity. Its rules include necessary prohibitions regarding misleading actions, misleading omissions, aggressive practices and failures to act with professional diligence.
- Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 (BPRs): These also govern business-to-business advertising.
- UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP Code): This applies to non-broadcast marketing and the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising (BCAP Code) sets the standards for television and radio advertising under Ofcom’s co-regulatory framework. Both codes require accuracy, clarity and evidence to support advertising claims.
Certain sectors (such as financial services, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, gambling, and food) also have additional advertising rules to follow. Businesses trading in these areas should obtain sector-specific legal advice.
The CMA can enforce the DMCCA directly and may impose financial penalties of up to 10% of a business’s global turnover or £300,000 (if higher) and order corrective statements or the removal of misleading online material. It can impose additional daily fines for ongoing breaches and pursue criminal prosecution in severe cases. Trading Standards and other regulators (such as the Financial Conduct Authority) also hold enforcement powers in their sectors. As such, it is vital for businesses to prioritise compliance with applicable advertising law to avoid enforcement risk.
Important Areas of Legal Compliance
While advertising rules are broad and complex, the following are examples of common compliance focus areas.
Advertising on Social Media and Influencer Marketing
Social media platforms are now major advertising channels. Influencer marketing must follow strict rules, including rules governing payments, gifts, commissions and other benefits. Businesses that work with influencers are responsible for ensuring the content complies with advertising law. Influencers must clearly and prominently identify advertising using labels such as “Ad,” “Advertisement,” or “Paid Partnership.”
Businesses should further require their influencers to:
- provide evidence for claims;
- avoid exaggeration; and
- comply with platform rules.
Reviews and Endorsements
Businesses must not manipulate consumer reviews. They must not:
- post fake reviews;
- remove genuine negative feedback; or
- conceal the fact that reviews were incentivised.
Businesses should take reasonable steps to detect and remove fake reviews. The DMCCA makes it an offence to submit or commission fake reviews, publish reviews in a misleading way, or fail to verify them adequately. When reviews are incentivised, the business must disclose this.
Wider Direct and Digital Marketing Rules
Direct marketing (such as emails, SMS, or telephone campaigns) is often used for business growth but must comply with the UK GDPR (to the extent that it involves processing personal data) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). Businesses must obtain valid consent to send consumers marketing (unless the soft-opt in exception applies) and must always offer a clear opt-out.
Digital and targeted advertising can often involve cookie-based and behavioural marketing, which carry their own strict legal rules and require transparency about personal data use and tracking. Advertisers must also respect individuals’ privacy rights and strictly comply with data protection rules where personal information is involved.
Continue reading this article below the formThe Importance of Seeking Legal Advice
Advertising law covers many areas, and the specific rules that apply depend on the business, its audience and its marketing practices. Regulators now scrutinise digital campaigns, influencer content and advertising material more closely, especially as it can be readily available online. Businesses should therefore obtain tailored legal advice from the outset to review their specific campaigns, prevent risk, ensure compliance and reduce exposure to enforcement or reputational damage.
Launching a SaaS business? Download this free cheatsheet to understand key contract essentials, including IP, data, and liability management.
Key Takeaways
Advertising can help businesses grow and profit, but it brings legal obligations. There can be a range of important legal rules and codes of practice to comply with, depending on the relevant advertising campaign. Regulators can impose serious penalties for non-compliance, including heavy financial penalties under the DMCCA, adverse ASA rulings, reputational harm, and in severe cases, criminal prosecution.
If you need legal help with setting up an advertising campaign, our experienced commercial lawyers can help as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you can access lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) reviews adverts and investigates complaints. It can require businesses to change or remove non-compliant content and refer serious cases to the CMA, Trading Standards or Ofcom.
The rules around advertising also apply to social media advertising. Influencers and businesses operating on social media must, for example, clearly label ads and make accurate claims.
We appreciate your feedback – your submission has been successfully received.
