Overview

All marketing and advertising must be:

  • an accurate description of the product or service
  • legal
  • decent
  • truthful
  • honest
  • socially responsible (not encouraging illegal, unsafe or anti-social behaviour)

There are regulations that restrict what advertisers can and cannot do.

As well as the regulations, there are 2 advertising codes of practice that you need to follow to help you advertise legally.

You must describe your product or service accurately.

Requirements for specific products

There are also specific requirements that apply to certain sectors, such as:

  • food
  • alcohol
  • beauty products
  • environmentally friendly products
  • medicines
  • tobacco

For example, you can only claim your drink is ‘low in alcohol’ if it contains between 0.5% and 1.2% alcohol by volume.

Data protection

If you’re gathering, storing or using information about customers or potential customers, you must also protect their data.