Legal decent honest and truthful - raising standards in recruitment sector advertising

It is incumbent upon advertisers to ensure that their advertisements, at a minimum, meet the standards set by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Part of that duty is ensuring that any claims made in their advertising are verifiable.

When claiming No 1 status in advertising, it is important that such claims are verifiable by objective and documented evidence. Indeed readers of such advertising have every right to expect that such advertising reaches that standard and to request sight of the documented objective information upon which any such claim is based.

There have been several instances in recruitment advertising where No 1 claims have been made without the documented and objective information to support such claims.

Claiming to be No 1 for quality is simple to claim but is simply not justifiable without the objective and documented evidence to support such a claim.

We therefore thank Back Office Support Services for assuring the ASA that they will stop making various claims about being No 1 for quality and also that their quality is ìaward winningî as they are unable to provide any objective evidence to substantiate such claims.

More information about the assurance given to the ASA will be published on the ASA website www.asa.org.uk from the 23 February 2005.