When the Advertising Regulatory Board looks at trends, we tend to see things happening at two levels. There are the trends that people are worrying about, whether locally or at international level; and there are trends in our advertising complaints. And then – and it would be cheating to actually call this trends – there are the issues that we find interesting.
Gail Schimmel is the ARB CEO. Source: Supplied.
Moving on from the shiny new toy
Internationally, 2025 was the year of AI. I don’t think that this comes as a surprise to anyone in the industry. Every conference at every level was talking about it, and the ICAS Global Think Tank produced two thought pieces on the topic of AI and self-regulation – one by South Africa’s very own Prof Steven Sidley.
On the AI front, I’m hoping that this might be the year where the shine starts to dull on the shiny new toy that is AI, and people start to realise that the work that AI produces is often wrong, tone deaf and elicits the “ick” in people reading or viewing it – even if they can’t pinpoint why. Going into 2026, the ICAS Global Think Tank is talking about how the new generation of children is absorbing media, a question that has to be close to all of our hearts both so that we can reach them, and protect them.
Self-regulation
Locally, it’s been all about gambling in 2025, and certainly for the first quarter of 2026, negotiating and publishing an updated Gambling Code, one that protects consumers from harm and the industry from a ban, will be high on our agenda. However, I think 2026 will also see many high-level conversations about self regulation the digital space beyond advertisers. International concerns that are become local hot points are finfluencers and “medico” influencers – people who set themselves up to give other people advice, despite having no actual expertise.
Our 2025 statistics show that the most complained about industries are online retail and financial products; and the most common issue (over 50%) is misleading claims. These two statistics reflect the fact that South Africans continue to be worried about how they can stretch their money – and most likely to complain when an advertisement misleads them around issues like prices, sales and value. However, we have also seen a growing problem reflected in our competitor complaints around packaging imitation.
This appears to reflect two trends – the first is that foreign competitors come into the market where the modus operandi of their business is to identify the market leader, and then produce a similar product packaged in very similar packaging. While these businesses are clever about sidestepping trademark law, they have not accounted for the protection that the Code of Advertising Practice affords to advertising properties.
The second trend is less malicious, but seems to show that even ethical businesses are having a drift towards trying to be more similar to their market-leading competitors rather than standing apart from them. I suspect that these complaint trends will continue into 2026.
And finally, we turn to the things that are on my mind as New Year wishes, as we turn to 2026:
- Again and again when we are discussing “problem” products like sugar and gambling, I call on industry to work together on producing responsible advertising that educates and protects, like the work done by Aware.org in the alcohol space. I would love to see more industries uniting in these efforts.
- I have been properly appalled by some of the advertising that we have seen in the last two years when it comes to gender stereotypes. At times, I have had to pinch myself and ask if we are actually in 2025, and not 1965. I’m not talking about prudishness; I’m talking about ads that compare women to ‘old bags”, that call them “birdies” and that ignore the lived reality of danger and harassment that is every woman’s experience to some degree. The ARB is an affiliate member of the UNStereotype Alliance, an organisation aimed at better depiction of women globally in advertising, as are various South African industry bodies. Let’s be better in this space!
- It was UNStereotype Alliance that drew my attention to the most amazing research around aging and health – put very simply, the more positive the depictions of aging we are exposed to, the healthier and happier we will be as we age. (If you want to know more about this, read up on the work of Dr Becca Levy.) What an amazing opportunity for advertisers to actually be part of shaping a healthier and happier aging population! I would love to see some conscious work in how we portray older people in our ads!
And if I only had one wish, it would take me back to the beginning of this article – badly drafted AI complaints, responses and appeals are becoming the bane of our existence at the ARB. They are inevitably factually incorrect (quote the wrong code, for example), aggressive (tell us we are incompetent) and raise completely imaginary issues. Use your own words, people – they’re good enough!
