Our services
Our mission, making the complex simple
Clearcast was founded in 2008 by Britain’s eight largest commercial broadcasters to simplify the process of getting advertising to air. Incorporating the bacc, we are building on over fifty years of experience of being a partner in the creative process for TV advertising.
The services that we provide are based on our core strengths:
- Compliance. We have 50 years expertise in ensuring that television advertising complies with BCAP codes.
- Advertising processes. We are uniquely positioned to streamline the advertising copy chain to the benefit of everyone that advertises on TV and wider audiovisual media.
- Metadata. We hold a range of metadata related to commercials ranging from artists and music featured to advertising restrictions.
We’re developing rapidly and happy to discuss potential business partnerships that match our areas of expertise.
Making it easier to get advertising to air - and keeping it there
At the heart of Clearcast are the core services that we provide the advertising community. We work with advertisers and agencies and on behalf of the commercial broadcasters to get advertising to air as smoothly as possible.
Advertising Preclearance
It is broadcasters’ responsibility that all ads transmitted are compliant with the BCAP TV Advertising Standards Code and most broadcasters entrust this responsibility to Clearcast. Our copy clearance team consider around 33,000 scripts and view 60,000 commercials every year.
Compliance of other Audio Visual Media Services, eg VOD
In 2009 we launched a new compliance service for VoD advertising to help our clients comply with the European Audio Visual Media Services Directive. VoD ads are cleared against the CAP (non-broadcast) code.
CARIA
CARIA is the system by which buying agencies send their campaign approvals to Sales Houses (effectively placing their orders for airtime). Creative agencies use the same system to specify the copy and rotations to be used for each booking. The service is free to use for buying and creative agencies. Clearcast commission the CARIA service on behalf of the TV industry in the UK and Ireland.
The service is provided for us by IMD Optimad and if you would like to find out more please contact Dan Shawcross at IMD Optimad on 020 7468 6640 or email dan@optimad.com.
Attribution
Our Attribution service underpins the analysis of television advertising in the UK. We are responsible for validating data for all BARB reported commercial copy transmitted on UK television and attributing it to a product, advertiser, advertising holding company, and buying agency. This facilitates a range of activities from media auditing to lead generation to share of voice analysis.
Please view the associated files below:
File: Clearcast Inbound Attribution Data File
File: Clearcast Inbound Sponsorship Data File
File: Sponsorship Global Identifiers Appendix Jan 2011
The Inbound Sponsorship Data file specification is used to send data relating to specific sponsorship events from sales houses to the Clearcast Attribution service. The appendix contains the list of sponsorship global identifiers used at the start of a Sponsorship code.
For any further queries regarding Attribution only, please contact Debbie Lawson at IMD on attributions@imdplc.com or +44 (0) 20 7468 6630. For other advertising clearance related questions please call our switchboard on 020 7339 4700.
Music Reporting
Clearcast is responsible for reporting the usage of music in commercials to rights societies.
Online Flash Test
Since September 1st 2010, all audio-visual ads must comply with rules on flashing images to avoid causing seizures amongst people with photo-sensitive epilepsy. We now offer a fully automatic online service which can test all audiovisual material for flashing images and regular patterns.
For more information please see the article in our news section and http://www.onlineflashtest.com/
Pitch Advisory Service
We provide a service dedicated to pitches, offering a more comprehensive service in the interest of advertisers and advertising agencies which will help prevent advertisers awarding a contract to an agency on the basis of a core creative idea that subsequently cannot be approved for TV.