Metrics
Advertising spend
One of the reasons why we prioritise the supervision of financial promotions is because consumers are exposed to a significant volume of financial services advertising. Approximately £545 million was spent by financial services across all media in the first half of 2008.1
The chart below shows what firms spent on advertising across different media channels in the first half of 2008.
 |
Direct mail | £99,593,514 |
|---|---|---|
| Door Drops | £108,877,035 | |
| Internet | £18,849,781 | |
| Outdoor | £27,978,671 | |
| Press | £115,932,560 | |
| Radio | £4,710,650 | |
| TV | £168,900,330 |
Monitoring and complaints about firms
We monitor financial promotions on television, direct marketing, press and websites to check that they comply with our rules. In the first six months of 2008 we monitored around 12,812 ads.
We encourage firms and consumers to report unfair, unclear or misleading promotions to us. In the first half of 2008, we received 534 complaints from our Hotline.
We received:
- 207 complaints from firms
- 327 complaints from consumers
We then looked in more detail at 1024 press ads and 250 TV ads.
Regulatory action
If an ad is non-compliant then whether we take action, and the severity of that action, depends on the risk it poses to consumers. We swiftly contact firms whose advertising is (in our view) unfair, unclear or misleading.
If we decide that the ad poses a significant risk to consumers we can ask the firm to withdraw or amend it. In the first half of 2008, we asked firms to amend or withdraw 87 ads in the following product categories:
- 15 ads for investment products
- 56 ads for mortgage products
- 16 ads for insurance products
Other regulatory tools at our disposal include taking supervisory action or referring the ad to other regulators such as the ASA or Office of Fair Trading. We took this kind of action in 54 cases in the first half of 2008. We always aim to be proportionate and risk-based in our dealings with firms.
If we have strong concerns about a firm's record on financial promotions then we may take enforcement action against it. In the first half of 2008, we publicly censured a mortgage broker for financial promotions and sales-related failings. We have taken enforcement action in 13 cases in the last 3 years, with total fines exceeding £1.5m. You can find details of these cases in our library.
Thematic action
In addition to engaging firms individually, we often conduct thematic investigations to identify whether there are wider market issues Read more about our thematic work.
1 Source: Thompson Intermedia plc