EASA 30th Anniversary Declaration

Today, on the 30^th anniversary of the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA), the Advertising Association joined other members of EASA(1) including the ASA, to sign the Madrid Declaration.

The Declaration reaffirmed the industry’s commitment to maintaining and further developing advertising self-regulation across Europe, under the principles enshrined in the EASA Charter.

It promotes strong self-regulation which ensures a high-level of consumer protection and justifies trust in advertising. The Declaration signed today committed members to:

1. Promote robustly-funded collective advertising self-regulation.
2. Promote technology-enabled advertising self-regulation.
3. Support independent and locally rooted advertising self-regulation.
4. Enable a common European approach.
5. Support responsive, inclusive, effective, and nimble advertising self-regulation

Joining the event, Rafael Escudero Alday, Spain’s Secretary General for Consumer Affairs and Gaming, gave a keynote speech, followed by María Ángeles Benítez Salas, Director of the Representation of the European Commission in Spain, and Ana Gallego Torres, Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate for Justice and Consumers.

Mark Howe, Managing Director Ad Industry Relations at Google, said “We are delighted that this important event, organised by EASA and the Spanish self-regulatory body, Autocontrol, was hosted at Google’s Madrid office. Google is a committed partner and is fully invested in the advertising self-regulation system which is key to building and maintaining trust with citizens, consumers and policymakers alike. We hope that other platforms can follow our lead in supporting EASA’s work which is critical to tackling the challenges of the future for the industry and consumers alike”.

Below is a gallery of photos from the signing of the Declaration.

1. European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA) – membership includes European national Self-Regulatory Organisations such as the ASA, industry bodies such as the AA (represented at European level through the Advertising Information Group), and Google.