Self-regulation effective for EU cosmetics advertising compliance… but let’s not get complacent
The personal care trade association announces its first independent audit conducted by the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA), of industry’s compliance with the Cosmetics Europe 2012 Charter and Guiding Principles on Responsible Advertising and Marketing Communications, and found the results to be positive.
According to EASA’s audit report, 91% of the advertisements of cosmetic products were in compliance with all relevant advertising codes/laws.
“The high level of compliance found in the EASA report highlights the effectiveness of self-regulation by the industry and the vital role it plays as a component of the overall EU policy and regulatory system for cosmetics advertising; the system works well!” says Loïc Armand, President of Cosmetics Europe.
“Nevertheless, our industry is not complacent. Cosmetics Europe is committed to promote continuous improvement of industry’s advertising practices, through compliance with the regulatory and self-regulatory framework and will seek to take learnings from the results of the EASA audit for the future.”
Audit
In the report a total of 1,861 advertisements were reviewed, including 577 television and 1,284 print advertisements aired/published over three month periods – September 2014, March and June 2015.
The audit also checked the compliance of advertisements against the national self-regulatory advertising codes and laws as well as the European legal requirements .
It was conducted across six representative European countries: France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Sweden and UK.
“We are delighted to have undertaken this first advertisement compliance monitoring for the cosmetics sector on its self-regulatory Charter and Guiding Principles,” says Dr Oliver Gray, Director General of EASA.
“This was one of the largest surveys of its type ever conducted by EASA and its independent SRO experts at national level. We hope the results will help improve even further responsible advertising practices across Europe.”
