Advertising and marketing | UK Regulatory Outlook April 2025

Changes to advertising codes reflecting DMCCA unfair commercial practices provisions come into effect  

On 7 April 2025, the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) published a regulatory statement setting out various changes made to the advertising codes following a consultation on aligning them with the unfair commercial practices (UCPs) provisions in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) (see this Insight). The changes to the codes came into force immediately.  

Previously, the adverting codes reflected the Consumer Protection form Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPUT). The DMCCA UCPs provisions, which came into effect on 6 April 2025, revoked and restated CPUT, but with some additions (see this Insight). Although the legal framework around misleading advertising has therefore remained largely the same, changes have been made to the legislative wording, definitions and structure. The new legislation also now includes a new set of commercial practices that are in all circumstances considered unfair. The amendments to the codes that the Committees have now introduced reflect these changes. 

CAP has previously said that when considering potential breaches of the codes, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) will have regard to the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) UCPs guidance, which was published ahead of the UCPs provisions coming into effect – see the Consumer section for more details. CAP recommends that advertisers refer to this guidance and take legal advice where appropriate to aid their understanding of the new legislation.  

HFSS: government clarifies how advertising restrictions will apply to brand advertising  

The government has published a statement on the implementation of advertising restrictions for "less healthy" food and drink products, also known as products high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS), on TV and online. The restrictions (embodied in the Advertising (Less Healthy Food Definitions and Exemptions) Regulations 2024) will come into force on 1 October 2025, and the government has already published guidance on them (see this Insight). The new statement clarifies that, in the government's view, "pure brand advertising" is not covered by these restrictions.  

This is because the legislation only restricts adverts that could reasonably be considered as promoting identifiable less healthy products, and not those that could be reasonably understood to be advertising just the brands. The government expects that businesses will still have an opportunity to promote their brands, as long as their ads do not identify HFSS products. For example, brands could promote their non-product attributes, such as corporate social responsibility efforts or customer experience, or advertise the healthier options in their range. The government believes that just associating a brand with less healthy products will not automatically make an advert fall under these restrictions.  

The clarification follows CAP's additional consultation on the new implementation guidance (see this Regulatory Outlook). Following the initial consultation process, draft guidance was amended to state that the "restrictions can also apply to advertising that does not explicitly depict or directly refer to a specific less healthy product, if people in the UK could reasonably be expected to identify the advertisement as being for an identifiable less healthy product."  

The ASA will now finalise the guidance, which is expected "later in the Spring".  

UK regulators publish enforcement notice on ads for prescription-only medicines for weight management 

The ASA, together with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the General Pharmaceutical Council, have published an enforcement notice, concerning the advertising of prescription-only medicines (POMs) for weight management. The regulators remind advertisers that POMs cannot be advertised to the public and urge them to review their ads in light of the guidance provided in the enforcement notice.  

The ASA says that it has launched 12 investigations into whether ads are promoting weight-loss POMs, and highlights that the majority of issues are caused by online ads. It will publish formal rulings once those investigations are complete, and the enforcement notice will also be updated. 

ASA explores the key advertising concerns of the UK public 

The ASA has published a series of research reports on "Understanding Advertising", based on a UK-wide survey looking into the advertising-related issues people are concerned about. The series comprises three reports, exploring: 

1. Context and concerns: this report aims to understand people's priority concerns and found that the availability of healthcare services, the cost of the weekly shop/household bills, and concerns around climate change came out on top. The media landscape ranked much lower, with only 6% of respondents naming it as one of their top three concerns.
2. Portrayal and imagery: this report focuses on how people are represented in advertising. It found significant concern about the depiction of women and girls in ads, including idealised body images and the objectification of women and girls. Violent and distressing images also ranked highly.
3. Misleadingness: this report found that more than half of respondents were concerned about misleading customer reviews and ratings, ads that mislead by omitting significant information, misleading descriptions or deceptive images, and misleading environmental claims.  

BCAP updates code to clarify scope of restrictions on broadcasting ads for unregulated investments 

Following public consultation BCAP has amended rule 14 of the BCAP code to clarify the scope of the rules on restricting the broadcast of ads for certain types of financial products to specialised financial channels, stations and programming only. See this Regulatory Outlook for details. As set out in the consultation, the amendment clarifies that the restriction in rule 14.5 applies to unregulated investment products only. 

Welsh regulations restricting promotion of HFSS products by location and price come into effect 

See Food law section.