WFA champions and defends marketers’ interests on key issues at both a global and EU level
Global level: societal and political challenges for the advertising industry are increasingly global in nature, and need to be addressed in a consistent and coherent manner. WFA engages directly with international bodies, such as the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Chamber of Commerce, Codex Alimentarius and the World Health Organisation on issues of direct relevance to marketers. Through its global network, WFA supports national advertiser associations in their advocacy work at national level. Other platforms, such as the Global Advertising Summit and the Responsible Advertising and Children Programme, facilitate partnerships and coalitions across the global advertising industry to engage and build a common front on key issues.
EU level: the EU is perhaps the international organisation with the most substantial law-making powers. Its impact is widely felt beyond the borders of the EU. As such, a substantial share of WFA’s advocacy work is focused on the EU. Via the European Action Group, WFA engages directly with top-level EU decision makers and drives EU advocacy programmes on issues that affect marketers’ operations.
1. The Value of Advertising
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Advertising plays an important role in today’s society. It is the driver of consumer choice and, by catalyzing market competition, helps us get better value for money. It enables innovation to be brought to market and stimulates economic growth and jobs. It funds free and independent media, an unprecedented variety of content, and a wide variety of sport and cultural events.
Yet these benefits, and the importance of sound policies to maximize their impact, are often poorly understood. In turn, growing calls for restrictions on advertising threaten to inadvertently put at risk the benefits derived from advertising.
WFA works to ensure that policy discussions which may impact marketing communications fully take into account the value of advertising for the economy, society and consumers.
Find out more:
The Value of Advertising
2. Responsibility and Self-Regulation Read more +
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Only if they are trusted can marketing communications be effective. Responsibility in marketing communications is a pre-condition for building and maintaining trust. WFA is at the forefront of efforts to set and enforce industry-wide standards for responsibility, based on clear, regulator-endorsed criteria.
While the rules go much further than what is required by the law, the enforcement mechanisms provide consumers with a means of redress that is faster and cheaper than the courts. Worldwide, these self-regulatory systems are constantly evolving in line with societal expectations. In turn, public authorities are increasingly recognizing effective self-regulation as a valuable complement to law.
3. New marketing techniques Read more +
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As fast developing technologies and seismic shifts in the media landscape transform marketing and advertising, the rules and regulations have to keep up with the times. Advertisers need to demonstrate that the same high standards they apply to ‘traditional’ advertising also apply to new forms of marketing communications.
The rapid growth of digital media and the prospect of better targeted, more relevant advertising messages create not only new opportunities for consumers and advertisers but also have implications for privacy and data protection. WFA helps its members continuously review their practices and industry-wide self-regulatory systems and helps modernize policy frameworks to reflect changes in the media and marketing environment.
4. Alcohol advertising Read more +
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Alcohol abuse and alcohol-related harm are public policy challenges which cannot be solved by governments alone. Although alcohol advertising is already heavily regulated, concerns remain about the ability of current statutory and self-regulatory rules to help prevent abuse.
Advertisers take their role seriously in promoting responsible alcohol consumption and are constantly reviewing their practices as a result. Yet, alcohol advertising does not cause alcohol related harm and further restrictions to marketing communications are not a solution. WFA helps alcohol marketers meaningfully engage and better navigate this challenging environment while advocating policies that take full account of the important contribution advertisers can make.
5. Food advertising Read more +
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The inexorable increase of overweight and obesity, particularly among young people, is one of the leading public health challenges of our time. Driven by a multitude of factors from more sedentary lifestyles to unbalanced diets, it can only be tackled by a collective effort of the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. In this challenging environment, advertisers are conscious of their responsibility and keen to be part of the solution.
Worldwide, WFA supports advertisers’ commitments to promote healthier choices and eating habits. Yet, food advertising does not cause obesity. WFA helps formulate policies which allow advertiser initiatives to have their greatest impact while avoiding heavy-handed interventions that would not reduce obesity rates but undermine the important contribution advertisers can make to address the problem.
Read more: WFA Executive Briefing on food advertising and obesity
6. Sustainable Development Read more +
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Consumers welcome products and services which help improve the environmental, social and economic sustainability of current lifestyles. This creates opportunities for advertisers to communicate relevant initiatives and to align their offering with consumer expectations. Beyond selling brands and ideas, advertising plays a positive role in addressing critical societal challenges, from increasing disease awareness to promoting water-saving.
WFA leads advertiser efforts globally to demonstrate how marketing communications can be a valuable tool to help preserve the standards of living we have come to expect without sacrificing the needs of future generations.
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Examples of how advertising helps promote sustainable development
7. Advertising and Children Read more +
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Children today are growing up in an environment shaped by media, entertainment and popular culture. Advertising is an intrinsic part of this. There are major benefits, from first-rate children’s programming to unprecedented access to technology, knowledge and communication tools. But children also need to learn to decipher and critically interpret the range of communications, including marketing communications, around them.
Advertisers consider it an important responsibility to help promote media literacy among children. This is a foundation for any responsible approach to marketing communications. In recognition of the special care that is required when advertising to children, WFA leads a global coalition of the advertising industry to identify, promote and replicate good practice and champion socially responsible initiatives, which go beyond compliance with industry standards.
Find out more:
MediaSmart, the industry’s media literacy programme
The industry’s Responsible Advertising and Children Programme
Advertising Education Forum, the most comprehensive online database of research on advertising and children
8. Competition Read more +
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Advertisers have a major stake in ensuring a fair, open and competitive market for marketing communications. Being able to select the right partners to help devise and deliver campaigns is a prerequisite for effective marketing communications.
WFA works with its members and relevant regulatory agencies to ensure that a fast-evolving media and agency landscape continues to preserve the benefits for advertisers and consumers of a high level of competition and transparency in the advertising marketplace.
