« The future of media regulation in New Zealand? | Main
New Advertising Code
By Steven | October 16, 2026
I have sometimes criticised ASA decisions, mostly around political ads, which I think are usually the most important. But remember, these are a tiny fraction of the ASA’s workload.
In general, as far as I can tell, they do a pretty good job. Over the years, they have been at pains to provide extensive guidance to their approach. They also regularly revise their code. For me, each version is clearer and better than the last.
The latest iteration kicks in next February, but is available now. It’s based on a report by their code committee. The differences are summarised here. I think they make it better. The committee has done a good job of striking the difficult balance between simplicity and clarity on the one hand, and, on the other, detailed and useful guidance, sometimes relating to specific common situations.
There are no radical changes. Mostly, it seems they have just fed back their experience with particular complaints into the code and its guidelines. Good on them.
Some of the more significant amendments are:
- Putting the requirement for evidence (or “substantiation” as they call it) right at the heart of the accuracy principle. You make a claim, you’ve got to be ready to prove it.
- The addition of a third overarching principle. The last version very helpfully put all the standards into two buckets: essentially, truth and social responsibility. Now there’s also a bucket about environmental claims. The ASA has clearly been doing a lot of work on this in recent years, and I really like what they’ve come up with (in fact, some of it is already in force). It requires things like ensuring that green claims reflect the whole lifecycle of the product, that any certifications are independent and real, that claims of environmental benefits are meaningful and properly backed by evidence based on “recognisable standards or frameworks where applicable.” (I note that a complaint against a false environmental claim may now fall under all three principles. Not sure what the ASA will do with that.)
- Greater guidance about advocacy advertising (which now only applies to paid ads). The requirement that opinion and fact must be “clearly distinguished” has been demoted from the primary rule. Apparently, there was concern that many ads contain both fact and opinion. True! But it’s still quite possible to distinguish which bits are which, and advertisers who aren’t doing that are usually exploiting the ambiguity. Under the new code’s guidelines, advertisers will still have to “consistently indicate whether a statement is presented as a fact (verifiable) or an opinion (subjective) via its “headings, layout and language.” I’m not so keen on this demotion. But then, I don’t think the requirement of clearly distinguishing been fact and opinion has been very well enforced in the past anyway.
- Better guidance about pricing claims, offensiveness, and safety and privacy implications in advertising.
- New guidance requiring the use of AI in advertising to be disclosed sometimes, in particular when images, video or audio are dicked with to create real-seeming people or footage.
Topics: General | Comments Off on New Advertising Code