Government £2m ‘levelling up’ ad campaign broke rules, watchdog finds

The government broke advertising rules with its marketing campaign to promote its ‘levelling up’ policies, the UK’s independent advertising regulator has found.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that local news ads used by the government, as part of a £2.15m marketing drive since March 2022, breached advertising rules because they were “not obviously identifiable as marketing communications”.

The government spent £590,000 of taxpayers’ money to place advertising with local news outlets in areas including Birmingham, Derby and Grimsby as well as over £1m on ‘out-of-home’ advertising such as billboards and posters.

The ASA concluded that despite being labelled with the text “ADVERTORIAL”, the full-page ads did not make it clear that they were paid advertising.”We considered, within the context of the full-page ads, that it was not clear that the heading related to the ads and that readers were likely to overlook this text,” the ASA said.

“We acknowledged that the advertorials featured an infographic which included a HM government logo. However, we considered that readers were likely to understand that the infographic itself was derived from a government source and used in the context of an editorial article, rather than draw the conclusion that its presence meant the article was an ad for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.”

The advert headlines in the local newspapers where the government chose to run the ads had headlines that read: “Levelling Up! What is it and what does it mean for the West Midlands?”

The advert has been banned from appearing in its current form. A spokesperson for the department said: “This was a small element of an important public information campaign about levelling up.

“The advertorial labelling was visible and prominent, carried the HMG logo and was in Reach plc’s house style for sponsored content. However, we accept ASA’s conclusions and will ensure these are reflected in any future materials.”

Alex Norris criticised ministers for deciding to spend the funds on the ad campaign “in the middle of the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation” and said the fact that the government broke advertising rules “just adds insult to injury”.

“Struggling families will not understand why ministers spent millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on what was effectively Tory propaganda,” the shadow levelling up minister said.

“With millions of families struggling to make ends meet and our front-line services buckling under the pressure of rising costs, we need a government that will spend taxpayers’ money wisely, play by the rules, and deliver growth for every part of the country. Instead we have an economic crisis, made in Downing Street and paid for by working people.”

The National Audit Office said in April that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities “could not provide any documentation to demonstrate the rationale or selection process” for the 22 areas that were the focus of the campaign.