Ad clearance in 2022 - Clearcast's top nine

As your partners in the advertising process, we’re here to make it as easy as possible for you to advertise responsibly. According to our 2022 clearance stats, we’re working well together to achieve this.

Check out 2022 in review, with our top nine clearance stats.

1. You sent us 25,076 scripts and 55,445 videos for approval. These figures were slightly down from 2021 but still a healthy amount of advertising.

2. We’re proud to have hit our service target which is to feedback on 85% of scripts within three days and 95% of videos in two.

3. 18 of our consultants helped with a total of 594 consultations, most of which were in cosmetics and skincare, with the least for vacuum cleaners.

4. The ASA formally reported on complaints against 39 ads, 22 of which were upheld, which is a minuscule portion of the ads we watched at only 0.03% (we’re doing our job well!).

5. The ASA informed us of complaints against 77 ads that they decided not to investigate formally.

6. We noticed a sharp increase in advertisers making green claims with The ASA taking a particular spotlight on the area too, resulting in five upheld rulings.

7. In November our training team ran an Environmental Training Webinar to enable advertisers to get their green claims right and dissect the most common claims we consider. Plus, 63 attendees joined July’s gambling training, giving them insight into the new ‘strong appeal’ rule.

8. If you used our Fast Track service last year, you’ll know that we fed back on your submission in the guaranteed 24 hours feedback time, just like every submission, with an impressive 100% 24-hour turnaround time record.

9. Our annual agency survey told us that 91% of you rated us as excellent or good to work with, which is amazing! Look out for this year’s survey coming later this year.

What’s next for 2023?

We’re continuing to look at how environmental claims are evolving, the new gambling ‘strong appeal’ rule (particularly around the use of specific individuals in football gambling ads), and keeping in mind the upcoming HFFS rule changes, which as you’re probably aware, are on hold for now, until 2025.

2022 was a successful year for us, with only a very small proportion of ads coming under scrutiny and an even smaller proportion raising concerns for the regulator. In 2023, our aim, as always, is to help you get your ads to air and keep them there. Here’s to a brilliant year.

If you have any questions about this article, get in touch.