We recently communicated a change to Clearcast's Notes of Guidance (NoG) that had been agreed by the Copy Committee (see below).  The Committee agreed that the notes relating to parody and plagiarism should be amended because they went beyond the Code’s requirements.  Instead of asking advertisers for sight of written permission to use certain creative treatments, the Notes now ask advertisers to ensure their ads do not infringe others’ intellectual property rights and encourages them to take legal advice if there is any doubt.

Neither the Committee nor the Notes are standing still.  The Committee has again recently agreed another amendment to the NoG.  Having discussed that the notes went beyond the BCAP Code and other statutory and non-statutory rules, the Committee agreed to amend 8.6.2 which stated that superlative claims for medicines and treatments, their ingredients or their effects were not acceptable.  Because both the Code and other guidelines disallow superiority claims over identifiable products, the Committee thought the NoG should reflect those requirements. The Notes have now been amended, and advertisers may, in future, make superlative claim in advertisements for medicines or treatments, provided robust evidence demonstrating superiority over competitor products is available and provided to Clearcast. 

To download the Notes of Guidance please click on the contents index in the navigation bar or click on the pdf in the Links & Download column on this page.

Jan 2007
Following recent discussions by the Copy Committee, Clearcast has made changes to the Parody and Plagiarism rules of its Notes of Guidance (NoG).

The Committee recognised that Clearcast (formerly BACC) has for many years relied on the NoG rules to seek confirmation from advertisers that they have received permission to use certain creative treatments that might be seen as either parodying or plagiarising others’ commercials. Because, however, the BCAP Code does not include rules about parodying or plagiarising, the Committee considered that the requirements in the NoG went beyond the Code.

Rules 2.3.9 (Imitation of Other Advertisers’
Commercials) and 2.3.11 (Parody and Plagiarism) have been deleted from the NoG and rule 2.3.12 has been re-worded and cautions advertisers to ensure their advertisements do not infringe others’ intellectual property rights.

These changes give advertisers full responsibility of ensuring the creative treatments they use are not likely to breach legislation that exists to protect others’ advertising.  Advertisers should seek legal advice if they are in any doubt.