Ad Standards advice

Want to know if your ad might attract complaints or is at risk of breaking the advertising rules?

We provide expert advice to advertisers, agencies, media providers and businesses who want to check how their ads measure up to the advertising rules we administer.

Our aim is to identify any potential issues before you spend time and resources taking your creative idea forward. We’ll also make suggestions that will help you to avoid complaints or break the rules.

What we provide

For a small fee, we provide:

• fast and efficient written advice on any proposed concepts, imagery and/or copy – at any stage of the creative process
• identification of potential issues
• general guidance on how you could bring non-complying material into line.

Our written advice is usually no more than 2 pages long, depending on the complexity of the request.

Any advice we provide is confidential. We will not discuss the material or advice given with any other person, organisation, or the Community Panel.

For more information on how we collect and process personal information, please see our Privacy Policy.

What we don’t provide

This not a pre-clearance service and we do not give advice on ads that are already in market. Although our advice is given in good faith and should help to avoid a breach of the rules, we cannot guarantee that a member of the public won’t be offended by the material or that your ad will not receive any complaints.  

Using our advice service is also not a guarantee that the ad won’t breach the code if it is considered by the Community Panel. As independent decision-makers, the Community Panel are not bound by our advice.

Cost

Fees are based on the complexity of the request.

Request type	Service fee	Criteria	Estimated turnaround time
Standard	$165 (incl GST)	Advice is reasonably able to be provided within 2 business days. The submission amounts to no more than 1,500 words (or the equivalent of 4 pages), and up to 4 pages of a website. There are not more than 2 similar ad executions in your request.	2 business days
Complex	$440 (incl GST)	Advice is not reasonably able to be provided within 2 business days. The submission is long, and text or image heavy. The submission raises issues across multiple advertising codes. There are more than 2 ad executions, or there are multiple submissions for the same ad/campaign made on the same day (which may be taken together as one request).	3 – 5 business days

You’ll need to make an upfront payment of the Standard Request service fee ($165 incl GST) at the time of request.

If after reviewing your submission we upgrade your request to ‘Complex’, we will contact you to organise further payment. All fees must be received before our advice is provided.

Submit a request for advice 

To submit your request for advice complete this online form. 

If you are not sure whether our advice service is right for you, contact [email protected] with your brief general enquiry and we will be able to guide you.