Clearcast
In practice, for a UK buyer
The paragraph above is the neutral answer. This is the part a vendor glossary leaves out.
The practical constraint is time and evidence. 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 and does not 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.
Goes deeper: Clearance, predicted early
What this one connects to
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.
More on compliance and clearance
UK data protection and UK advertising clearance: what has to be true before an ad runs.
45 minutes. Bring a real brief and we compile it live. You describe one audience and watch it compile into seven targeting specifications, each with the score for how much of the definition survived.
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