Autocontrol: A Critical Study of Achievements and Challenges in the Pursuit of Ethical Advertising Through an Advertising Self-Regulation System

The theory and practice of advertising self-regulation have been evolving for decades in pursuit of basic standards for advertising quality. In Spain, this discipline was put into practice in 1995, the year the Association for the Self-Regulation of Commercial Communication (Autocontrol) was created. This article aims to examine in depth the functioning of the Spanish advertising self-regulation system, with special emphasis on the Advertising Jury, and explore to what extent some of the normative requirements of rigour, independence and participation can be considered to have been met. The paper is based on a case study in which interviews with Autocontrol members, Jury members and consumer associations have particular bearing. The results shed light on the achievements of Autocontrol’s self-regulation work and the challenges it still faces.The authors, who are members of the Spanish research project FI2013-47136-C2-2-P, would like to express their gratitude to all the association members and individuals who were interviewed during the study, and for their attention, help and patience during the research project. In addition, the authors would like to acknowledge and thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments, which have greatly improved this paper