The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) recently carried out a piece of compliance work looking at how pet food is advertised in a bid to make sure advertisers are getting their claims right. 

ASA reviewed a wide range of pet food brands’ online advertising. Their monitoring sweep found that many ads compared products against those from other brands – and even with entirely different types of pet food. Where these comparison claims weren’t properly supported, or where they denigrated competitors, many had the potential to break the rules. 

They also noticed that a number of advertisers were making claims about the health benefits of their products. ASA are reminding advertisers that if making such claims, they must hold robust evidence, and where claims stray into promoting medicinal benefits for products that aren’t appropriately licensed, they break the rules regardless of any evidence held. 

To improve compliance in the sector, ASA have issued advice to the advertisers assessed in this project, reminding them of their responsibilities under the Code and encouraging them to make changes where needed.  

They have also published further guidance on pet food advertising to help advertisers get it right. This can be found here  

In the meantime, their work in this area will continue, and they have emphasised that they won’t hesitate to take further action if repeated or serious breaches of the rules are seen. 

Pet food advertisers who want to make sure their ads are compliant from the outset can also take advantage of CAP’s confidential Copy Advice service, which offers pre-publication advice on non-broadcast ads.