What Are the Legal Requirements for Advertisers

What are the legal requirements for advertisers? To start, there are two main laws. There are few laws aimed directly at advertisers, but those concerning trading in general apply equally to advertising. The two trading laws which particularly affect the advertiser are:

• the Sale of Goods Act

• the Trade Descriptions Act

It is unlikely that you will fall under both of these Acts, and you certainly don't need to know them in detail. In essence, they have two main provisions of concern to the advertiser. Goods advertised must be 'fit for the purpose' for which they would normally be used, and they must correspond to your description of them.

You could not, for example, sell a vacuum flask which didn't keep liquids hot, because that is what vacuum flasks are normally used for. Your customer couldn't complain, however, if the flask was damaged when he was using it to keep his screws in. That cannot be classified as normal use!

Probably more important for the advertiser is the requirement that goods must correspond to description. It is, of course, only reasonable that advertisers should describe their products correctly. If your advertisement for the vacuum flask above said that it was useful for keeping screws in, then the customer would have cause for complaint if it was damaged when he used it for that purpose.

So what pitfalls to avoid? There are some potential pitfalls, however, particularly in relation to the composition of your product and its price. Just as the label of a product must list its components in descending order, so must an advertisement for it. If you are advertising a dress made of seventy per cent acrylic and thirty per cent wool, you must describe it as being acrylic and wool, not wool and acrylic.

Advertisements are also governed by the same regulations on pricing and price reductions as retail stores; any goods advertised as being reduced must have been offered at the full price for a period of twenty-eight days in the previous six months.

If you contravene the law, or if there is a dispute with a customer over whether you have contravened it or not, it is likely to be referred to the customer's local Trading Standards Officer. If he supports the customer, you will be asked to refund any money paid, and to amend your advertisement. As a last resort, you could be prosecuted, but only if you persistently refused to make amends.

There are two other laws which might affect some advertisers. If you offer goods on credit terms, the Consumer Credit Act requires you to obtain a license from the Office of Fair Trading. Information can be obtained from your local Trading Standards Department. If you maintain a mailing list, you could be affected by the Data Protection Act, designed to protect the public against the misuse of personal data held on computers.