Ethical Rules for Digital Marketing: A Practical Review Checklist

A campaign should not reach production because the concept is persuasive and the channel plan is finished. Before launch, the team needs to establish that its claims are supported, its material information is clear, its targeting is responsible, its customer choices are meaningful, and that foreseeable problems can be detected and stopped.

This checklist applies to advertisements, offers, landing pages, influencer content, emails, messages, product prompts, promotional journeys and the customer experiences attached to them.

It turns the ethical-marketing principles into campaign-level decisions.

Scope note: This checklist is not legal advice or a substitute for specialist review. Requirements vary by jurisdiction, sector, product, audience and channel. Each item below separates the ethical principle from the possible legal or regulatory relevance, because they are not the same thing.

1. Use the checklist before production begins

Ethical review works before the team has committed budget, creative assets and launch dates. A final-stage review produces wording changes when the real problem may be the offer, the targeting model or the journey design.

Ethical principle: Accountability and harm prevention.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: Advertising and consumer-protection standards commonly assess the whole communication and the overall impression, not the final headline in isolation (1). The obligations that apply must be identified for the intended markets and channels.

Required evidence: Campaign brief, proposed offer, audience definition, channel plan, customer journey, claims inventory and a preliminary risk classification.

Practical test: Can the reviewer describe what the customer will see, believe and be asked to do, from first exposure through to post-purchase support?

Common failure: Sending isolated copy to legal or compliance without the offer, the targeting criteria, the landing page or the checkout journey.

Accountable owner: Campaign owner.

Stop condition: Production should not begin while the offer, the intended audience or the proposed customer action remains materially undefined.

2. Define the customer and the proposed action

Record who will receive the campaign, who will be excluded, and what decision the campaign is trying to influence.

Ethical principle: Fairness, transparency and proportionality.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: Audience-specific rules may apply to children, regulated products, vulnerable consumers, direct marketing, or the use of personal data. Financial-services requirements, for example, apply only within relevant regulated activities and cannot be generalised to every campaign (2).

Required evidence: Target-audience definition, inclusion and exclusion rules, channel characteristics, product-risk assessment and the intended customer action.

Practical test: Walk several realistic audience profiles through the campaign, including somebody with limited knowledge, limited time, or reduced ability to absorb a loss.

Common failure: Defining the audience only by its predicted conversion rate.

Accountable owner: Marketing strategy owner, with product and analytics support.

Stop condition: Pause where the team cannot explain why the intended audience is suitable, or why an excluded group is being treated differently.

3. Check the factual claim

List every express and implied objective claim, including claims conveyed through images, comparisons, demonstrations, testimonials and omissions.

Ethical principle: Honesty and evidence.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: The CAP Code requires documentary evidence to be held before publication for objective claims consumers are likely to regard as capable of substantiation (3). UK consumer law separately prohibits misleading actions and misleading omissions (1). In the United States, FTC advertising principles likewise require claims to be truthful, non-deceptive and evidence-based, which is a separate framework and not UK law (4).

Required evidence: Primary substantiation, methodology, product coverage, dates, limitations, comparison basis and a named evidence owner.

Practical test: Ask independent reviewers to write down what they think the claim means, then compare their interpretation with the evidence.

Common failure: Substantiating a narrow technical statement while the headline, image or overall presentation creates a broader impression.

Accountable owner: Claims owner, with legal, regulatory or scientific review as appropriate.

Note on generated material: AI does not change the requirement for campaign material to be accurate, substantiated and identifiable where disclosure is needed to prevent deception. Review generated copy, images, audio, testimonials and endorsements under the same rules as human-created material, and remember that a model’s confidence is not evidence. For system inventory, fairness testing, human oversight, vendor controls and monitoring, see the AI governance and risk framework.

Stop condition: Do not launch an objective claim that lacks adequate evidence, materially overstates the evidence, or cannot be explained consistently by the people responsible for it.

4. Check prices, fees and conditions

Review every price from first exposure through to checkout. Identify all compulsory charges, and every condition affecting whether the advertised price or benefit is realistically available.

Ethical principle: Transparency and informed choice.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: UK law requires the total price to be given in an invitation to purchase, including mandatory fees, taxes, charges and other unavoidable payments capable of advance calculation, with equivalent prominence for the calculation method where an amount cannot be calculated in advance (5). CMA guidance explains how it assesses presentation, prominence, partitioned pricing and drip pricing (6). Separate guidance covers obtaining express consent for optional additional charges, including pre-ticked boxes and default opt-ins (7). CAP pricing rules also apply within the scope of UK non-broadcast advertising (3).

Required evidence: Full price calculation, compulsory-charge inventory, delivery assumptions, eligibility rules, introductory-period conditions, renewal terms and checkout screenshots.

Practical test: Can a customer work out the minimum unavoidable amount payable from the first price presentation? Repeat on mobile, and through every advertised route.

Common failure: Advertising a low component price and adding unavoidable charges later in the journey.

Accountable owner: Commercial or pricing owner, with marketing and legal review.

Stop condition: Pause where the total unavoidable price is unavailable, materially less prominent than a component price, or inconsistent across the journey.

5. Review urgency, scarcity and promotional pressure

Check every countdown, stock message, deadline, queue, demand signal and last-chance statement.

Ethical principle: Autonomy and non-coercion.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: UK consumer law prohibits misleading and aggressive practices, and Schedule 20 lists practices considered unfair in all circumstances (8). CAP rules also address availability and false claims that a product or offer will be available only for a very limited time (3). In November 2025 the CMA opened a consumer-protection drive covering misleading time-limited offers and countdown-style pressure, while stating that it had reached no conclusions about the businesses concerned (9).

Required evidence: Inventory data, offer dates, system logic, reset behaviour, geographic limitations and approval for any dynamically generated message.

Practical test: Refresh the page, come back later, use another device, and test after the stated deadline. Confirm the representation is still true.

Common failure: A countdown that resets, a low-stock warning unrelated to actual availability, or an offer that routinely continues past its stated end.

Accountable owner: E-commerce or product owner.

Stop condition: Do not launch pressure messaging that is fabricated, cannot be verified, or continues after its factual basis has expired.

6. Review endorsements and influencer disclosures

An endorsement should reflect the endorser’s genuine experience, and any relationship capable of affecting how the audience judges it should be disclosed clearly.

Ethical principle: Transparency, authenticity and accountability.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: CAP Section 2 requires marketing communications to be obviously identifiable, and requires commercial intent to be clear where it is not apparent from the context (10). CAP guidance confirms that payment, gifts, incentives, affiliate commission, ownership or another commercial connection can trigger disclosure, and normally expects a prominent advertising label before the audience engages with the content (11). In affiliate marketing, both the affiliate and the business whose products are promoted are responsible under the Code, even where the affiliate created the content without the business having any input (12). The joint CAP and CMA guide allocates responsibility across creator, brand and any agent involved, and is awaiting an update following the DMCC Act, so its account of the underlying law should be read with that in mind (13). CMA guidance for content creators applies regardless of audience size and covers free or discounted products, payment, commission and other incentives (14). For UK financial promotions on social media, FCA guidance applies within the FCA perimeter (15). US endorsement guides are a separate framework and do not carry the status of a UK rule (16).

Required evidence: Contract, material-connection record, approved claims, product-use confirmation, disclosure wording, placement screenshots and a monitoring plan.

Practical test: Show the content stripped of surrounding campaign context. Can a typical viewer immediately tell it is advertising, and understand the commercial relationship?

Common failure: Relying on a biography, a platform tag, vague wording such as partner, or a disclosure that only appears once the viewer expands the post.

Accountable owner: Influencer or partnerships lead.

Stop condition: Withhold publication where the commercial nature is not immediately clear, the endorsement is not genuine, or the endorser makes claims the brand cannot support.

7. Review targeting and exclusion

Examine who the campaign reaches, who is suppressed, and which data or model outputs produce those decisions.

Ethical principle: Fairness, proportionality and non-discrimination.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: Data-protection, equality, sector and platform rules may all apply depending on the attributes, purpose and jurisdiction. The UK GDPR principles include fairness, transparency, purpose limitation and data minimisation (17). Large-scale profiling, data matching across multiple sources, and targeting children or vulnerable people for marketing all appear on the ICO’s list of processing likely to result in high risk, which is the trigger for considering a data protection impact assessment (18).

Required evidence: Targeting variables, source and provenance, model documentation, suppression rules, audience-size analysis, outcome comparisons and a data-protection assessment where applicable.

Practical test: Remove each variable in turn and ask whether it is necessary, explainable, and unlikely to create unjustified disparities.

Common failure: Treating a proxy variable as neutral because it does not explicitly name a protected or sensitive characteristic.

Accountable owner: Media or analytics owner, with data-protection and fairness review.

Stop condition: Pause where the targeting rationale cannot be explained, the necessary permissions are absent, or testing reveals an unexplained material disparity.

There is a prior question that this check often exposes, and it is worth asking before any of the fairness testing. The customer in the strategy deck and the customer in the data are frequently different people. A luxury house I worked with was certain its main digital target was women over forty, which was its overall customer profile and entirely accurate for its physical stores. The website data showed the actual buyers were women between roughly twenty-seven and forty, and men between twenty-five and thirty-five. The brand had been building digital campaigns for an audience that was mostly buying somewhere else. Nobody was behaving badly, but every downstream fairness question, about who is included, who is excluded and whether the tone suits the recipient, was being answered against the wrong population.

For the wider lifecycle, see ethical use of consumer data in marketing.

8. Review children and vulnerable audiences

Determine whether children or people in vulnerable circumstances are likely to see, understand or act on the campaign, even where they are not the selected audience.

Ethical principle: Avoiding exploitation, and recognising power imbalances.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: Within the CAP Code, a child is generally a person under sixteen, and specific rules prohibit exploiting credulity, loyalty, vulnerability or lack of experience (19). The CMA assesses a practice from the perspective of the average member of a vulnerable group where the group is particularly vulnerable and the vulnerability was reasonably foreseeable, and that test is objective rather than dependent on proof that an individual was harmed (1). Where children’s personal data is used, the Children’s Code applies to relevant online services (20). In EU online-platform contexts, the Digital Services Act includes protections for minors including restrictions on targeted advertising, with obligations varying by provider type and size (21). Financial-services vulnerable-customer guidance applies within its own regulated remit (2).

Required evidence: Audience composition, age-assurance or exclusion logic where relevant, comprehension testing, product-risk assessment and support routes.

Practical test: Ask whether the creative, the placement or the pressure technique becomes materially more persuasive to somebody with limited experience or reduced ability to absorb the consequences.

Common failure: Assuming a nominal age filter prevents exposure, or transfers responsibility for the content.

Accountable owner: Audience-risk owner, supported by safeguarding or compliance specialists where required.

Stop condition: Do not launch where the campaign exploits inexperience, distress, dependency or known susceptibility to harm.

9. Review accessibility and comprehension

A customer cannot make a meaningful choice where the important information is inaccessible or unnecessarily hard to understand.

Ethical principle: Fairness, inclusion and autonomy.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: In the UK, the Equality Act duty on service providers is anticipatory, meaning the provider should consider disabled customers generally and adjust the service rather than waiting for somebody to hit a barrier (22). EHRC guidance states that the responsibility applies to customers using retail services in store or online (23). WCAG 2.2 is a technical recommendation rather than, by itself, a universal legal obligation, and provides testable criteria organised around perceivable, operable, understandable and robust experiences (24).

Required evidence: Accessibility test results, keyboard and screen-reader checks, captions and text alternatives, colour-contrast review, readability testing and assisted-channel options.

Practical test: Complete the whole journey using keyboard-only navigation, zoom, a screen reader and a small mobile screen. Add human testing where the risk warrants it.

Common failure: Testing the advertisement while the landing page, form, verification step or cancellation route remains inaccessible.

Accountable owner: Product or customer-experience owner, supported by accessibility specialists.

Stop condition: Pause where an important step cannot be completed, material information cannot be perceived, or serious known barriers remain unresolved.

Comprehension deserves as much weight as accessibility, and it is the half that usually gets skipped. Loyalty schemes are the clearest example I have seen. Brands build point structures with tiers, multipliers, expiry rules and exceptions, and then cannot understand why participation is poor. When the scheme is not clear to the people in it, they do not study it harder. They ignore it, and carry on buying the way they were going to anyway. Treat an incomprehensible mechanic as a failed mechanic rather than a communications problem, because a customer who cannot follow the offer has not really been given the choice the offer claims to provide.

10. Review data use and direct-marketing permissions

Identify what information will be used, where it came from, why the organisation may use it, and which rules apply to the communication channel.

Ethical principle: Privacy, proportionality and respect for preferences.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: The applicable rule depends on subscriber type, consent, and whether a soft opt-in applies. For electronic mail marketing, the soft opt-in requires all five conditions to be met: details obtained directly from the recipient, during a sale or genuine negotiations for a sale, marketing limited to the sender’s own similar products or services, a simple opportunity to refuse when the details were collected, and a simple opportunity to refuse in every later message (25). A separate charitable-purposes soft opt-in applies from 5 February 2026 and only to details collected on or after that date (25). A blanket claim that all marketing emails require consent would therefore be wrong. Storage and access technologies used for online advertising still require consent, and the analytics exception does not cover ad measurement or behavioural targeting (26). People have an absolute right to object to direct marketing, and processing must stop once a valid objection is received (27).

Required evidence: Data source, lawful-basis assessment where relevant, consent or soft opt-in record, subscriber classification, suppression-list test, privacy information and channel-specific permissions.

Practical test: Take sample recipients and reconstruct why each of them is eligible to receive that exact message.

Common failure: Treating an existing customer relationship, a publicly available address or a purchased list as automatic permission for any form of direct marketing.

Accountable owner: CRM or lifecycle-marketing owner, with data-protection review.

Stop condition: Do not send where the team cannot demonstrate the applicable permission route, honour objections, or reliably suppress people who have opted out.

Implementation detail belongs in the GDPR and CCPA framework and the privacy and personalisation trust guide.

11. Review interfaces for dark patterns

Review visual hierarchy, defaults, button wording, sequencing, interruption and friction, not only the accuracy of the copy.

Ethical principle: Autonomy and freedom from manipulation.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: UK consumer law addresses misleading presentation and aggressive practices, and the CMA’s evidence review on online choice architecture remains its principal published analysis of how interface design can harm consumers (28). EDPB guidance addresses deceptive design patterns in social media platform interfaces specifically, and its scope should not be described as covering every marketing interface (29). The EU Digital Services Act restricts deceptive interface design for covered platforms (21). A US regulator staff report describes enforcement concerns involving disguised advertising, buried terms, difficult cancellation and manipulative data collection, and is analysis rather than a statute (30).

Required evidence: Journey maps, screen recordings, default settings, acceptance and refusal paths, interaction analytics and the design rationale.

Practical test: Compare the prominence, number of steps, wording and consequences of accepting against declining. Test whether a reasonable person could choose wrongly because of the design rather than their preference.

Common failure: A bright acceptance button paired with an obscure refusal link, repeated prompts, or confusing negative wording.

Accountable owner: Product design or customer-experience owner.

Stop condition: Pause where the design is intended to produce accidental agreement, conceal a material choice, or make refusal unreasonably difficult.

12. Review cancellation, unsubscribe and withdrawal

Test the exit journey with the same care as the acquisition journey.

Ethical principle: Autonomy, reciprocity and accountability.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: Cancellation, cooling-off and withdrawal rights depend on jurisdiction, product, contract type and the applicable exceptions. UK distance and off-premises consumer contracts may engage the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 (31). Direct-marketing objections and unsubscribe rights arise separately under data-protection law and PECR (27). Note that the DMCC Act subscription-contract regime has not been commenced, and the stated government expectation is spring 2027, so it should not be described as an operative requirement today (32)(33). Specialist advice should confirm which regime applies.

Required evidence: Cancellation flow, unsubscribe links, expected completion time, authentication requirements, refund conditions, confirmation messages and support escalation.

Practical test: An independent tester should cancel, unsubscribe or withdraw on every supported device, without internal knowledge.

Common failure: Joining takes one click while leaving requires searching, calling, repeating information, or declining several retention offers.

Accountable owner: Product and customer-service owners.

Stop condition: Do not launch an acquisition campaign where the advertised service lacks a functioning, understandable and appropriately accessible exit route.

13. Review environmental and social claims

Treat words such as sustainable, green, responsible, ethical, inclusive, fair and carbon neutral as claims requiring a defined basis.

Ethical principle: Honesty, accountability and avoidance of environmental or social harm.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: CAP environmental rules require clarity about the basis of claims, expect strong substantiation for absolute claims, and address life-cycle limitations and claims based on legal obligations (34). Rules 11.8 and 11.9 of that section were shown as deleted in October 2025, so an older internal copy should be rechecked. CMA guidance explains consumer-law expectations for green claims, including responsibilities across supply chains (35).

Required evidence: Defined claim boundary, methodology, source data, life-cycle coverage, comparison basis, certification status, supplier evidence, dates and material limitations.

Practical test: Replace the headline with a literal description of what has actually been measured. Where the literal version is materially narrower, qualify the claim.

Common failure: Generalising a limited product, packaging or operational improvement to the whole organisation or the whole life cycle.

Accountable owner: Sustainability or social-impact evidence owner, with marketing and legal review.

Stop condition: Do not publish an undefined, outdated or selectively framed claim, or one that presents ordinary legal compliance as exceptional performance.

14. Test the complete customer experience

Review the campaign as a connected process: advertisement, landing page, sign-up, checkout, confirmation, fulfilment, support and exit.

Ethical principle: Consistency and accountability.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: Consumer-protection assessments may consider the overall presentation, and whether material information was supplied in time to affect the customer’s decision (1). Where an AI assistant or agent sits between the customer and the offer, existing consumer law still applies, and CMA guidance addresses steering, pressure, misleading recommendations and ranking transparency in AI-mediated interfaces (36).

Required evidence: End-to-end journey, device and browser tests, price and condition consistency, fulfilment assumptions, support routes and failure-state screens.

Practical test: Start from every major advertisement and complete the journey as a new customer. Repeat with slow connectivity, a small screen and realistic errors.

Common failure: Every individual asset is acceptable, but the sequence produces a misleading overall impression.

Accountable owner: Customer-journey owner.

Stop condition: Pause where a material promise, price, limitation or choice changes between touchpoints without a clear explanation.

15. Define complaints and escalation

The organisation should know how campaign-related concerns will be recognised, classified and escalated before launch, not after.

Ethical principle: Accountability and remedy.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: Complaint-handling rules vary by regulated sector and jurisdiction. Separately, since June 2026 organisations have had an express data-protection duty to provide a means of making complaints, acknowledge within thirty days, investigate without undue delay and communicate the outcome, with no departmental exemptions (37). Even where no campaign-specific procedure applies, complaints are evidence of misleading impressions, accessibility failures or customer harm.

Required evidence: Contact routes, complaint categories, severity levels, escalation owners, response standards and links to campaign identifiers or variants.

Practical test: Submit a test complaint through every advertised support channel. Confirm it reaches somebody able to identify the campaign and start a review.

Common failure: Complaints are logged as isolated service issues and never connected to the message, offer or targeting decision that caused them.

Accountable owner: Customer-service owner, with a named campaign-risk recipient.

Stop condition: Do not launch higher-risk activity without a working route for urgent escalation and customer remedy.

16. Establish post-launch monitoring

Approval rests on predictions. Monitoring tests whether those predictions were right.

Ethical principle: Continuing responsibility.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: Monitoring expectations exist within specific regulated sectors. Financial-services guidance, for example, expects firms in its remit to monitor outcomes for vulnerable customers and improve where needs are not being met (2). That is not a universal rule, but it is a useful illustration of what outcome monitoring looks like when a regulator specifies it.

Required evidence: Dashboard specification, data owners, complaint signals, segment-level outcomes, claim-expiry dates and review frequency.

Practical test: Simulate a failure signal before launch. Confirm the right owner receives it and can identify the affected campaign, audience and remedy.

Common failure: Monitoring conversion and revenue while ignoring misunderstanding, opt-out friction, cancellations, complaints or uneven outcomes between groups.

Accountable owner: Campaign owner and analytics owner.

Stop condition: Do not launch a higher-risk campaign where material customer outcomes cannot be observed within a useful timeframe.

One warning about interpreting whatever the dashboard shows. A metric can look excellent because of who it measures rather than what the campaign did. Mobile apps in direct-to-consumer retail are the example I return to: app engagement and conversion reliably beat the website, and brands present this as proof the app is working. People buy from more than thirty brands a year and will not keep thirty apps, so the ones who install yours were already your loyal customers. The app did not create that loyalty; it selected for it. Before you conclude that a campaign improved an outcome, check whether it simply reached the people who were going to produce that outcome anyway. This matters ethically as well as commercially, because a campaign judged on a self-selecting group will look harmless even when it is causing problems for everybody it did not select.

17. Define pause and stop conditions

A campaign should have predetermined conditions under which it will be reviewed, paused, corrected or withdrawn.

Ethical principle: Precaution and accountability.

Possible legal or regulatory relevance: Some failures, such as an unsupported claim, an inaccurate price or an absent permission, may require immediate cessation. Other thresholds are organisational safeguards beyond minimum compliance, and should be labelled as such.

Required evidence: Named stop indicators, thresholds, authorised decision-makers, platform access, a withdrawal procedure and a remediation plan.

Practical test: Ask the team to rehearse stopping the campaign outside normal working hours.

Common failure: Everybody can see the problem, and nobody has the authority or the platform access to stop it.

Accountable owner: Named campaign-risk owner.

Stop condition: Immediate pause should ordinarily follow discovery of a materially false claim, an invalid price, a missing permission, a serious accessibility barrier, fabricated scarcity, a harmful targeting outcome, or an exit route that does not work.

Stopping something you have already promised is the hardest version of this, and it is worth rehearsing the conversation rather than only the mechanics. I once inherited a situation where a new partner had been promised a feature that was more than two years from existing. Refusing the promise outright would have been accurate and useless. Instead I met the people who had sponsored the purchase, explained the roadmap honestly without describing my colleague as a liar, offered alternatives and additional service, and showed them that what they lost by not having that feature was smaller than what they would lose by switching vendor at that moment. The same three moves work when withdrawing a campaign: do not punish whoever raised the alarm, do not destroy the credibility of the person who made the original decision, and reframe the discussion around what proceeding would actually cost. A stop rule that requires somebody to be publicly blamed before it can be used will not be used.

Escalations that involve competing commercial and customer interests should be assessed using the broader ethical-marketing framework.

18. Campaign review checklist

Review item	Minimum evidence	Primary owner	Stop when
Campaign purpose and audience	Brief and audience rationale	Campaign owner	Purpose or audience is materially unclear
Claims	Primary substantiation	Claims owner	Evidence does not support the likely impression
Prices and fees	Full price calculation	Commercial owner	The unavoidable total is unclear
Conditions	Complete material terms	Marketing and product	Conditions are hidden or contradictory
Urgency and scarcity	Live factual basis	E-commerce and product	The pressure signal is fabricated or expired
Endorsements	Contract, genuine experience, disclosure	Partnerships	The relationship or commercial intent is unclear
Targeting	Variable and outcome review	Media and analytics	Permission or fairness cannot be demonstrated
Children and vulnerability	Audience-risk assessment	Risk owner	Inexperience or vulnerability is exploited
Accessibility	Journey testing	Product and customer experience	A material step is inaccessible
Direct marketing	Permission and suppression evidence	CRM owner	Eligibility cannot be reconstructed
Interface design	Acceptance and refusal comparison	Design and customer experience	Design induces accidental or coerced choice
Cancellation and opt-out	Completed exit tests	Product and service	Exit is broken or unreasonably obstructed
Environmental and social claims	Defined methodology and scope	Evidence owner	The claim is vague, outdated or overstated
End-to-end journey	Recorded customer tests	Journey owner	Touchpoints produce an inconsistent impression
Complaints	Tested escalation route	Service owner	Urgent concerns cannot reach decision-makers
Monitoring	Dashboard and review cadence	Analytics	Material outcomes cannot be observed
Stop process	Thresholds, authority and access	Risk owner	Nobody can promptly pause the activity

A campaign should proceed only when:

• all mandatory evidence is present;
• required legal, regulatory and self-regulatory checks are complete;
• unresolved risks have been escalated to the right authority;
• responsible owners are named;
• monitoring and stop rules are active;
• the approval record specifies what was actually reviewed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

An ethical campaign review is not somebody inspecting the final wording the day before launch. It is an end-to-end test of the claim, the offer, the audience, the interface, the customer decision and the response plan.

The strongest review asks seven questions repeatedly:

1. Which ethical principle is engaged?
2. Which legal, regulatory or self-regulatory standard may apply?
3. What evidence is required?
4. What practical test has been completed?
5. What is the most likely failure?
6. Who owns the decision?
7. What would stop the campaign?

When those answers are documented before production and monitored after launch, ethical review becomes an operating process rather than a statement of intent.

References

1. Competition and Markets Authority, Unfair commercial practices, statutory guidance, ref. CMA207, published 4 April 2025, updated 18 November 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/unfair-commercial-practices-cma207/unfair-commercial-practices
2. Financial Conduct Authority, Guidance for firms on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers, finalised guidance, ref. FG21/1, published 23 February 2021, updated 22 July 2026. Applies within the FCA’s regulated remit only. https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/finalised-guidance/guidance-firms-fair-treatment-vulnerable-customers
3. Committee of Advertising Practice, 03 Misleading advertising, CAP Code section, no publication or update date displayed. Self-regulatory code applied by the ASA. https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/03.html
4. Federal Trade Commission, Advertising and Marketing, business guidance collection, no publication or update date displayed. United States guidance concerning laws enforced by the FTC; not UK law. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/advertising-marketing
5. UK Parliament, Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, section 230, primary legislation, 2024 c.13. See in particular subsections (2), (4), (5) and (9). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/13/section/230
6. Competition and Markets Authority, Unfair commercial practices: price transparency, guidance, ref. CMA209, published 18 November 2025, page updated 7 January 2026. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/price-transparency-cma209
7. Competition and Markets Authority, Getting consent for additional charges when selling online, guidance, published 18 November 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/getting-consent-for-additional-charges-when-selling-online
8. UK Parliament, Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20: Commercial practices which are in all circumstances considered unfair, primary legislation, 2024 c.13. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/13/schedule/20
9. Competition and Markets Authority, CMA launches major consumer protection drive focused on online pricing practices, press release, published 18 November 2025. The CMA stated that it had reached no conclusions on whether the businesses concerned had broken the law. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-launches-major-consumer-protection-drive-focused-on-online-pricing-practices
10. Committee of Advertising Practice, 02 Recognition of marketing communications, CAP Code section, no publication or update date displayed. Self-regulatory code applied by the ASA. https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/02.html
11. Committee of Advertising Practice, Recognising ads: Social media and influencer marketing, AdviceOnline guidance, page dated 26 September 2025. https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/recognising-ads-social-media.html
12. Committee of Advertising Practice, Online Affiliate Marketing, AdviceOnline guidance, page dated 22 March 2023. https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/affiliate-marketing.html
13. Committee of Advertising Practice and Competition and Markets Authority, Influencers’ guide to making clear that ads are ads, joint guidance, third edition published 23 March 2023. The landing page records that the guide is awaiting update following the DMCC Act 2024, and that the advice remains broadly correct although its legal underpinning has changed. https://www.asa.org.uk/resource/influencers-guide.html
14. Competition and Markets Authority, Social media endorsements: guidance for content creators, regulator guidance, published 23 January 2019, updated 3 September 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-media-endorsements-guidance-for-content-creators
15. Financial Conduct Authority, FG24/1: Finalised guidance on financial promotions on social media, finalised guidance, published 26 March 2024. Applies to covered financial promotions, authorised approvers and certain unauthorised communicators. https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/finalised-guidance/fg24-1-finalised-guidance-financial-promotions-social-media
16. Federal Trade Commission, 16 CFR Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, revised administrative guides, dated 26 July 2023, matter no. P204500. United States framework interpreting section 5 of the FTC Act; not UK law. https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/federal-register-notices/16-cfr-part-255-guides-concerning-use-endorsements-testimonials-advertising
17. Information Commissioner’s Office, A guide to the data protection principles, regulatory guidance, updated 23 March 2026. The page states that the guidance is under review following the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 and may change. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/data-protection-principles/a-guide-to-the-data-protection-principles/
18. Information Commissioner’s Office, Examples of processing ‘likely to result in high risk’, Article 35(4) list and accompanying guidance, no publication or update date displayed. Under review following the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/accountability-and-governance/data-protection-impact-assessments-dpias/examples-of-processing-likely-to-result-in-high-risk/
19. Committee of Advertising Practice, 05 Children, CAP Code section, no publication or update date displayed. Self-regulatory code applied by the ASA. https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/05.html
20. Information Commissioner’s Office, Age appropriate design: a code of practice for online services, statutory code of practice prepared under section 123 and issued under section 125 of the Data Protection Act 2018, laid before Parliament 11 June 2020, in force 2 September 2020, full application from 2 September 2021. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/childrens-information/childrens-code-guidance-and-resources/age-appropriate-design-a-code-of-practice-for-online-services/
21. European Commission, Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, The Digital Services Act, official explanatory page, last updated 18 May 2026, concerning Regulation (EU) 2022/2065. EU law; obligations vary by service and platform type and do not apply identically to every website. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services-act
22. Equality and Human Rights Commission, Services, public functions and associations: Code of Practice, statutory code of practice, published 1 January 2011, page updated 14 July 2026. An updated draft code was laid before Parliament on 21 May 2026 and had not been brought into force at the time of writing. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/codes-practice/services-public-functions-and-associations-code-practice-0
23. Equality and Human Rights Commission, Retailers’ legal responsibility to disabled customers, official guidance, published 1 September 2021. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/retailers-legal-responsibility-disabled-customers
24. World Wide Web Consortium, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, W3C Recommendation, 12 December 2024. An international technical standard; not by itself a universal statutory obligation. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/
25. Information Commissioner’s Office, Guidance on direct marketing using electronic mail, regulatory guidance, updated 28 April 2026 to incorporate the charitable-purposes soft opt-in. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/guidance-on-direct-marketing-using-electronic-mail/
26. Information Commissioner’s Office, Guidance on the use of storage and access technologies, regulatory guidance, first published 20 December 2024, finalised 29 April 2026. Replaces the previous detailed cookies guidance. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/guidance-on-the-use-of-storage-and-access-technologies/
27. Information Commissioner’s Office, Plan direct marketing, regulatory guidance, no page-specific update date displayed. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/direct-marketing-guidance/plan-direct-marketing/
28. Competition and Markets Authority, Evidence Review of Online Choice Architecture and Consumer and Competition Harm, evidence review, ref. CMA157, published 5 April 2022. Described by the CMA as reference material rather than binding guidance. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-choice-architecture-how-digital-design-can-harm-competition-and-consumers/evidence-review-of-online-choice-architecture-and-consumer-and-competition-harm
29. European Data Protection Board, Guidelines 03/2022 on deceptive design patterns in social media platform interfaces, version 2.0 adopted 14 February 2023. EEA guidance concerned specifically with social media platform interfaces; not UK law. https://www.edpb.europa.eu/documents/guideline/guidelines-032022-on-deceptive-design-patterns-in-social-media-platform_en
30. Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Bringing Dark Patterns to Light, staff report, September 2022. United States enforcement analysis; a staff report rather than standalone law, and not UK law. https://www.ftc.gov/reports/bringing-dark-patterns-light
31. Secretary of State, The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, statutory instrument, SI 2013/3134, in force 13 June 2014. Application depends on contract type, product and the stated exceptions. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3134/contents/made
32. Competition and Markets Authority, Writing a fair contract for customers, guidance, published 23 March 2016, updated 22 July 2026. States that the subscription rules are expected to come into force in spring 2027. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/writing-a-fair-contract-for-customers
33. Department for Business and Trade, Government response to consultation on the implementation of the new subscription contracts regime, consultation outcome, published 2 April 2026. Confirms that secondary legislation is required and anticipates commencement in spring 2027. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-the-implementation-of-the-new-subscription-contracts-regime/outcome/government-response-to-consultation-on-the-implementation-of-the-new-subscription-contracts-regime-web-accessible-version
34. Committee of Advertising Practice, 11 Environmental claims, CAP Code section, no general publication date displayed; rules 11.8 and 11.9 shown as deleted on 24 October 2025. Self-regulatory code applied by the ASA. https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/11.html
35. Competition and Markets Authority, Making green claims: getting it right, across the supply chain, regulator guidance, published 22 January 2026. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-green-claims-getting-it-right-across-the-supply-chain
36. Competition and Markets Authority, Complying with consumer law when using AI agents, guidance, published 9 March 2026. Applies existing consumer law to AI-mediated interfaces rather than creating a separate regime. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/complying-with-consumer-law-when-using-ai-agents
37. Information Commissioner’s Office, How to deal with data protection complaints, regulatory guidance, published 12 February 2026, updated 8 May 2026. The complaints duty was commenced on 19 June 2026. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/how-to-deal-with-data-protection-complaints/

Position stated as at 28 July 2026. Regulatory guidance changes, and several of the sources above are marked by their publishers as under review. Check the linked sources before relying on any statement of the current legal position.