Always 'young people' ad and the ASA

[DameHelena]

I complained about this ad. Remember discussions on here about it at the time.
ASA have not upheld complaints. Their reason (this is specifically in response to the 'misleading' aspect of the ad):
'Council noted that the claim was qualified with on-screen text which explained that the statistic was taken from a 2020 online survey of 2,030 young people aged 13-17. From the information available, Council understood that those who had responded to the survey had stated that they had periods. They also noted that the claim used terminology drawn from the survey report. As such, Council concluded that the claim was unlikely to mislead or be seriously or widely offensive.'

I replied: 'I don’t find the explanation for not upholding the complaints about it being misleading convincing. The on-screen text also uses the term 'young people’, which doesn’t further clarify.
It doesn’t really matter that 'Council understood that those who had responded to the survey had stated that they had periods.’; the wording of the ad is what is presented to viewers.
The terminology may have been drawn from the survey report, but it is up to the product company/ad company to reword as necessary to be clear to its intended audience. I also note with interest that in this reply itself, the words ‘women’ and ‘girls’ are avoided when I very much assume that the survey was of 2,030 young women/girls. I’d be interested in knowing what if any guidelines the ASA follows with regards to sex and gender wording.
The ad clearly quite deliberately avoided using (in both the main wording and the on-screen text) the words ‘women’ and ‘girls’. In combination with the statistic given, and in the context of an ad for period products, this was very obviously misleading.'

They replied: 'The ASA Council is the final arbiter of complaints, and now that they have considered this matter we shall not be taking any further action.'

Apparently there's an independent review process, but 'complainants must first be able to establish that a substantial flaw of process or adjudication is apparent, or show that additional relevant evidence is available.'
So they don't make it easy.
And he completely swerved my question about the ASA itself avoiding the words ‘women’ and ‘girls’, and what if any guidelines the ASA follows with regards to sex and gender wording.
Did anyone else complain and get the same response?

Yup.
But just because a complaint wasn't upheld doesn't mean that the message won't have got through to the advertisers.

Hope so...

Well done for pursuing this You could check whether ASA has to respond to freedom of information requests and, if it does, ask for the guidance it uses with respect to language around sex and gender?

You got on better than me - I complained about an ad for an alternative therapy making medical claims including curing cancer, and ASA responded to say they were about to move so a response may be delayed, then they were moving, and finally that they had moved. They never responded to my complaint. I gave up as there didn't seem any way to take it forward.

I tried complaining at the time to ASA but for some reason could not get it to submit. Is it worth writing directly to Always to voice our concerns? Has this been done already?

They conveniently lost your message in the move, eh?
If you've got the energy/will, maybe take it up again. And wish them happy new house.

I'm going to write to Always. I think it's worth writing direct, yes. I expect them to double down though.