Complaints handling for the advertising industry is currently self-regulated through the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB). In this report, commissioned by ASB, this system of self-regulation of complaints is assessed against a scenario where the system is regulated through direct regulation by government.

Comparing the self-regulatory complaints system with this hypothetical, Deloitte Access Economics considers it likely that the self-regulatory approach achieve similar outcomes to government regulation in compliance and effectiveness, and perform better in terms of cost, efficiency and responsiveness:

• Cost: It is likely the ASB requires a lower budget than a government regulator with $1.02 million in salaries compared to $1.42 million.
• Compliance: The ASB and the government perform equally well with high compliance rates.
• Efficiency: The self-regulatory system handles the majority of cases (99.8%) in less than three months while a reasonably comparable government regulator completes most (97%) within six months.
• Effectiveness: The ASB and a government regulator both score reasonably well in terms of complainant and stakeholder satisfaction with the system.
• Responsiveness: The ASB appears to be relatively more flexible in its ability to regulate new mediums emerging in advertising such as social media.