What does an ad compliance check actually check? The 13 rulebooks, clause by clause

Rules, rulebooks and clauses

Three nouns do the work in this article. An instrument is a published text that sets rules for advertising: a code, a set of guidelines, a statute. A clause is a numbered provision in it. A rulebook is the check's own organised set of rules for a market and a sector, and every rule in it names its source: a numbered clause, a section, a chapter or a whole text. A finding is only as good as that citation: a reviewer, a brand head or a lawyer should be able to open the instrument and read the clause for themselves.

kbie Lens holds 13 rulebooks across 4 markets, with 114 rules between them. India is among the 4 markets; the others are the United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States. Every market and count in the table below is read from the rulebooks themselves, not typed.

Which rulebooks a check reads is decided by the ad itself: the market it runs in and the sector of the product it sells. A mutual fund ad in India is read against the advertising code and the securities rulebook; a snack ad against the advertising code and the food rulebook. A brand's own rules are read in the same pass.

India: the ASCI Code, chapter by chapter

The base layer in India is the ASCI Code for Self-Regulation of Advertising Content in India. It has four chapters, and Chapter I sets the tests every claim in an ad must meet.

• Chapter I, truthful and honest representation. Section 1.1: an ad must be truthful. Section 1.2: a claim said to rest on independent research must name that research's source and date. Section 1.4: an ad may not distort facts or mislead by implication or omission. Section 1.5(a): a product may not be called free where the consumer bears a direct cost beyond delivery.
• Chapter I also sets out what an ad may do. Section 1.6 permits obvious exaggeration meant to amuse, so long as no reader would take it as a literal claim. A check that flags every hyperbole is as useless as a check that flags none.
• Chapter II, non-offensive to the public: ads must not offend generally accepted standards of public decency. This chapter carries no numbered clauses, so a finding under it cites the chapter.
• Chapter III, against harmful products and situations. Section 3.2 covers ads addressed to children; Section 3.3 covers dangerous practices shown without justifiable reason; Section 3.4 says an ad must contain nothing in breach of the law.
• Chapter IV, fair in competition. Section 4.1 sets the conditions for a comparative ad: clear about what is compared, factual, capable of substantiation, not misleading and not denigrating. Section 4.3 bars copying another advertiser's earlier ads.

India: the misleading advertisement guidelines, 2022

The Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022 were notified in June 2022. Where the code states principles, these guidelines set conditions, clause by clause:

• Clause 4: the conditions for a non-misleading and valid advertisement.
• Clause 5: bait advertisements, where the offer is not honestly available. Clause 7: free-claims advertisements.
• Clause 6: surrogate advertising, where a permitted product stands in for a product that may not be advertised.
• Clause 8: advertisements that target children.
• Clause 11: disclaimers. A disclaimer may not contradict the main claim or hide what the ad leaves out, and must be in the ad's own language and legible.
• Clause 12: the duties of the manufacturer, service provider, advertiser and agency. Clause 13: due diligence by anyone who endorses. Clause 14: disclosure of a material connection between endorser and brand.

Clause 12 matters to a brand team because its duties do not stop with whoever wrote the line.

India: endorsers, and the rules for pages and checkouts

Endorsements have their own instruments. The Guidelines for Influencer Advertising in Digital Media decide when a disclosure is needed (clause 1.1), require it to be upfront and prominent (clause 1.2) and understood by an average consumer (clause 1.3), and ask a virtual influencer to say that it is virtual (clause 1.4). The Guidelines for Celebrities in Advertising of July 2023 ask that a celebrity's testimonial reflect a genuine, current opinion (clause (c)) and that the celebrity check the ad's claims can be substantiated (clause (d)).

Pages and checkouts are governed by the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023. Clause 5 ties its prohibition to the thirteen patterns its annexure names, including false urgency, basket sneaking, confirm shaming and the subscription trap. These rules mostly concern a user journey rather than the ad itself, so they sit largely outside a check of the creative.

The advertising-code rulebook also carries statutes a creative can break outright: the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954, for claims to cure listed diseases; the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, for real-money gaming; and section 11(2) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, which requires a registration number on property ads.

The sector rulebooks, and the other markets

In India, the sector rulebooks cover securities and investment, banking and lending, insurance, and food and nutrition claims. Each holds the rules that apply to ads in its sector on top of the code: the risk warning a mutual fund ad must carry, the rate a loan ad must state, the conditions a claim such as no added sugar must meet, and how an insurance ad must flag benefits that are not guaranteed.

Outside India, the United Arab Emirates rulebooks read the national media content standards of Federal Decree-Law No. 55 of 2023 and the rules for property, health, finance, food and telecom advertising. The United Kingdom rulebook reads the non-broadcast advertising code, citing a rule or a whole section. The United States rulebook reads the law against deceptive acts and practices, the Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255) and the rule on consumer reviews and testimonials (16 CFR Part 465).

What a finding looks like

A useful finding has three parts: the clause it sits under, the exact words or frames it is about, and the evidence behind it. Without the clause, it is an opinion. Without the words, nobody can fix it. Without the evidence, nobody can check it later.

kbie Lens is built that way. It names each finding with the clause it sits under, the words or frames it is about, and the evidence behind it. It approves nothing on its own: a failing result can refuse a publish, and a person decides what happens next.

What to do Monday morning

• Write down, for each live campaign, the markets it runs in and the sector of what it sells. That list decides which rulebooks apply.
• Pull every objective claim out of the creatives, and next to each claim, the document that substantiates it. Section 1.1 of the code asks that an ad be truthful, and clause 4 of the 2022 guidelines sets the conditions for a valid ad; a claim with no document behind it meets neither.
• Read every disclaimer against clause 11: the same language as the ad, legible, and not contradicting the headline.
• For every influencer or celebrity post, confirm the disclosure is upfront, and that the endorser has seen the evidence for what they say.
• Keep the record: the exact creative that was reviewed, the date, the clauses it was read against, and the person who decided.

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