Compliance and clearance
What is Clearcast?
Free, with no card. We read your homepage, draft who buys from you and show your monthly price before you join the waitlist. Nothing is bought until you've approved the plan and the ads.
what it means here
Here is what the term means for a UK buyer
The definition above holds anywhere. Buying media in the UK adds the detail below, including where AdBuyMCP does something different.
Clearance takes time, and some claims need evidence before they pass: superlative and market-leadership claims need documentary substantiation, and health claims are routinely rejected without it. AdBuyMCP's creative pre-check predicts which claims will be flagged before you commission the asset, and states clearly that it cannot read a substantiation document or assess evidence quality. Where you declare that you hold evidence, both the claim and the declaration stay on the record for the body that actually decides.
What does Clearcast check?
Clearcast checks copy against the BCAP code, which the Advertising Standards Authority enforces. Three provisions cause most problems. Objective and superlative claims (best, number one, market-leading) need documentary evidence. BCAP rule 3.9 puts the duty to hold it on broadcasters, and Clearcast asks the advertiser for it. Medicines, medical devices and health claims need evidence, and unsubstantiated efficacy claims are routinely refused. Category rules on alcohol, gambling and financial products constrain both the copy and where it can run.
Cinema is cleared separately, by the Cinema Advertising Association, which issues its own certificate and age rating.
How long does clearance take?
Clearance adds a lead time, and it usually decides the earliest date a campaign can air. Clearcast asks advertisers to allow two to three weeks for the whole process on television. AdBuyMCP's cinema workflow plans about eighteen days from brief to screen, with the CAA's clearance in the path, though cinema sits outside an AdBuyMCP awareness plan.
AdBuyMCP's pre-check runs deterministically against the UK codes before you commission anything, names the rule beside each finding, and records any substantiation you declare. Clearcast makes the decision, and it will ask for the documents themselves.
Type your company website or work email to see who we think buys from you and what reaching them 3, 5 or 12 times a week would cost.
Free, with no card.
related terms
These terms sit next to this one
Most confusion in media buying comes from two adjacent terms being used interchangeably, so these are the neighbours worth reading next.
Cinema Advertising Association (CAA)
The body that clears advertising for UK cinema, issuing a certificate and an age rating that determines which films an advert may be shown alongside. Separate from broadcast clearance and required before print traffic.
BCAP and CAP codes
The two UK advertising codes, enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority: BCAP governs broadcast advertising and CAP governs everything non-broadcast. They set the rules on substantiation, harm, offence and specific product categories.
Addressable TV
Television advertising where different households watching the same programme at the same time receive different adverts, swapped in at the set-top box or in the stream. It is bought on household attributes and geography rather than on programme and time slot.
Linear TV
Traditional broadcast television bought as spots against programmes and time slots, where everyone watching that break sees the same advert. Priced on predicted audience delivery rather than on individual impressions.
same group
These terms are also in Compliance and clearance
UK data protection and UK advertising clearance: what has to be true before an ad runs.