procedure

Approve creative for UK clearance

Run the pre-check first, because a rejected script costs a fortnight.

UK broadcast and cinema advertising must be cleared before it airs, by separate bodies with separate rules. The three provisions that do most of the work: objective and superlative claims need documentary substantiation, medicines and health claims require evidence and are frequently blocked outright, and cinema copy containing strong language restricts pairing to 15 and 18 certificate films, which makes the last one a media constraint as much as a creative one. AdBuyMCP runs a deterministic pre-check that predicts these flags before you commission anything.
steps
6
things needed first
3
roughlyTwenty minutes
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what you need

You need these before you start

  • Draft copy or a script
  • Knowledge of what substantiation you actually hold for any claim in it
  • For cinema, an idea of which certificate films you want to sit alongside

the procedure

The procedure has six steps

Every step comes with a note on what commonly goes wrong there.

  1. step 01

    Run the pre-check before production

    The pre-check runs against the UK codes and returns findings with the rule named beside each one, rather than a bare pass or fail. It runs deterministically and needs no API key.

    what goes wrong here

    If you run it after production, fixing a flagged claim means a reshoot instead of a script edit.

  2. step 02

    Deal with superlatives first

    Best, number one, market-leading and similar claims need documentary evidence. The pre-check finds the claim and names the rule.

    what goes wrong here

    Where you declare that you hold substantiation, the system records the declaration alongside the claim and states explicitly that it has not assessed the evidence. The clearance body will want the documents themselves.

  3. step 03

    Treat health claims as a stop

    Medicines, medical devices, treatments and health claims require evidence and an unsubstantiated efficacy claim is routinely rejected.

    what goes wrong here

    For a health claim, rewriting the copy usually costs less than disputing a rejection.

  4. step 04

    Check the cinema age rating implication

    Strong language restricts your copy to 15 and 18 certificate films, which changes the audience you can reach and therefore the media plan.

    what goes wrong here

    Worth catching at the scripting stage, because it can invalidate the venue and film package the plan was built on.

  5. step 05

    Produce to the delivery spec

    Broadcast needs a 16:9 ProRes 422 HQ mezzanine at 1920×1080 and 25fps, at least 20Mbps, supers inside title-safe and audio to EBU R128. Cinema needs a 2K flat DCP at 24fps with 5.1 audio, sixty seconds maximum.

    what goes wrong here

    A social cut will not clear on either, so broadcast and cinema each need their own master file.

  6. step 06

    Submit and wait

    Cinema routes through the distributor with a clearance certificate before print traffic. Broadcast clears before air.

    what goes wrong here

    Build the lead time into the flight. Around eighteen days is realistic for cinema once clearance is in the path.

what you end up with

A script whose predictable clearance problems were dealt with before anything was commissioned, and, for cinema, a film and venue package that is still valid after clearance. Not a guarantee of clearance: Clearcast, the CAA and the publishers decide, and the pre-check cannot assess substantiation.

other procedures

You might need these procedures next

Talk your market and your plan through with James Rooney, who built AdBuyMCP and wrote its code.

Book a 30-minute call with the founder

These questions come up when you approve creative for UK clearance

Can the pre-check guarantee clearance?

No. It predicts what the clearance bodies and publishers will flag, using deterministic rules against the UK codes. It cannot read a substantiation document and says so explicitly: where you declare that you hold evidence, it records the declaration beside the claim and states that it has not assessed quality. Clearcast, the CAA and the publishers make the decision, and they will ask for the documents themselves.