Advertising Law Gets Serious

Advertising law can be pretty mundane: did the company advertising its product exaggerate a tad, did it copy a competitor's adverting material, did it diss a competitor? But within the space of one week there were two decisions that show that advertising law also deals with issues of national importance.

The first was the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal handed down on 20 June 2012 in the case of BAT v Minister of Health and National Council Against Smoking, and it dealt with the ban on tobacco advertising. This ban is contained in section 3(1) (a) of the Tobacco Products Control Act 1993, which reads: 'No person shall advertise or promote, or cause any other person to advertise or promote, a tobacco product through any direct or indirect means....'. The word 'advertise' is defined as follows: 'any commercial communications or action brought to the attention of any member of the public and in any manner with the aim, or effect, or likely effect of promoting