Advertising Standards Bureau Review of Operations 2014 | Page 17

Achievements in 2014
Our strategic plan

Our key result areas

The Board of Directors of
the Advertising Standards
Bureau, along with the CEO,
govern the strategic direction
of the Bureau. Through
its strategic, financial and
operational dealings, the Board
aims to position the ASB
as the foremost complaints
resolution body for advertising
in Australia.

Financial

Our strategic plan covers four
key result areas:
• Financial
• Beneficiaries/Stakeholders
• Internal business processes
• Long term development.

The ASB is financially viable and sustainable
The increase in the number of codes, complaints,
cases and media types falling under the remit
of the ASB during the past 15 years resulted in
industry endorsement of an increase in the levy
applied to advertising spend. The increase from
0.035 per cent to 0.05 per cent came into force on
1 April 2014. Prior to this increase the levy rate
had remained unchanged since 1997.
The levy is primarily by media buyers and remitted
directly to the administering body the Australian
Advertising Standards Council (AASC), which in
turn provides funding to cover the operating costs
of the ASB.
The ASB acknowledges the assistance of the
Australian Association of National Advertisers,
the Media Federation of Australia, the
Communications Council and individual
companies for supporting and assisting the ASB
in the process to review the levy framework.
Work continued in 2014 in promoting the
benefits of the advertising self-regulation system
and encouraging advertisers to maintain the
support of the system through payment of the
levy. Work to gain levy support from some of
Australia’s larger advertisers also continued
in 2014.
With more money being spent in-house by
industry on diverse advertising and marketing
communications, a current focus at the ASB
is assessment of the most suitable, long-term
approach to ensure equitable contributions from
industry. The goal of the approach selected will
be to maintain adequate funding levels to ensure

Review of Operations 2014

the independent complaints handling system
continues to be world class.

Revenues are in line with media expenditure
The financial administration and control of
the Advertising Standards Bureau is overseen
by an independent internationally recognised
accounting firm (BDO) with accounts audited
by an independent national audit firm (Grant
Thornton). The audit report for the financial
year 2013-14 reconfirmed that the financial
management of the ASB was in accordance with
current laws and accounting standards.
The overall level of financial support provided
by advertisers was slightly above the level of the
previous year, reflecting the introduction of the
increased levy rate. During the year ongoing
monitoring was conducted to determine if there
had been a variance in advertiser financial support
due to rate increase. To date there was no evidence
that support has decreased.
As well as striving to increase levy income, the
ASB has maintained a firm control of expenditure
to ensure that financial administration is prudent
and effective.

Beneficiaries/Stakeholders
The ASB is valued by the community as a
reputable, credible, trustworthy service
Community endorsement of the service provided
by the ASB was highlighted in survey responses
by consumers during 2014.
As with previous years, during 2014 the ASB
continued to invite complainant and advertiser
feedback about the advertising complaint

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