Offensive and Harmful Advertising: A Content Analysis of Official Complaints

This study presents an analysis of 9,055 complaints about offensive and harmful advertising, using archival data from the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The aim is to identify what advertising is actually complained about and contrast these findings with the field's previous focus on potential offense. Due to its moral calculus, growing presence in the marketplace, and higher proportion of offense and harm-based complaints, the noncommercial sectors (not-for-profit, third, and public sectors) have been selected for study. Key findings are used to propose a new typology of offense elicitors and raise questions about the effectiveness of a self-regulatory system.