A View from the Top: Lord Christopher Smith, outgoing chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority

After 10 years, Lord Smith is leaving the ASA transformed from a reactive body, acting on public complaints about broadcast and print advertising, to a proactive entity responsible for policing the entire digital space

Lord Smith leaves the ASA at the end of September, at the age of 66 (John Cassidy The Headshot Guy)

There have only been a handful of times during Lord Christopher Smith’s 10-year tenure as the chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority when he’s had to make the call to ban an advert immediately. One of these times occurred in 2014, when Paddy Power put odds on Oscar Pistorius being found not guilty in the Reeva Steenkamp murder trial. The ASA received a record 5,525 complaints for the ad, which offered “money if he walks”.

Lord Smith remembers the moment: “It succeeded in offending women and disabled people simultaneously. We banned the ad immediately and the investigation upheld the complaints against it.”

Lord Smith is a master at juggling his many responsibilities. He admits to working until he falls asleep around 1am most nights. Though on quieter days, he has been known to collapse in front of a box set with his partner at their home in Clerkenwell. West Wing is a favourite.

As the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport during Tony Blair’s first term, Lord Smith had oversight of the advertising industry. This experience drew him to the role of ASA chairman when it came up in 2007, during what was initially a busy period of his life: he was also chairman of the Environment Agency between 2008 and 2014. More recently, he has taken up the post of master of Pembroke College at Cambridge University, a role he describes as “a tonic” as it gives him the chance to be “around young people at the start of their lives”.

Lord Smith leaves the ASA at the end of September. At 66, he insists he’s not retiring, though he also admits he’s not sure what will fill the “ASA-shaped hole” in his schedule.

He leaves the ASA transformed from a reactive body, acting on public complaints about broadcast and print advertising, to a proactive entity responsible for policing the entire digital space.

The ASA is funded by the advertising industry and half of its resources are now spent rectifying misleading claims on company websites, teaching irresponsible bloggers how to be transparent about paid-for content and working with Google to target offenders.

“Everyone is increasingly sceptical of everything, but in order for advertising to have its proper impact, people need not just to be excited by it and amused by it,” he says. “They must believe that fundamentally – even though advertising may exaggerate – it tells the truth.”

That has become increasingly tricky in the age of social media. “People follow [influencers] because of their authenticity. They’re not part of an establishment conspiracy,” Lord Smith says. Earlier this year, the ASA published guidelines to ensure that bloggers label posts that have been sponsored by brands. When I suggest that the majority of sponsored posts on Instagram go unlabelled, he says that the ASA is on the case.

“We have become more proactive,” he says. “The bulk of our work is complaints-driven, but we’re also now identifying particular sectors where there is a problem.” He points to broadband pricing as an area where this approach has seen results. Providers can no longer get away with advertising six months’ free broadband if the customer has to pay for line rental, for example.

When a business fails to comply, the ASA has a range of sanctions to fall back on. It names and shames those who don’t change their advertising when asked. Ninety per cent do. If the problem persists, the ASA will work with Google so that anyone who searches for the company in question will see the adjudication made against it. Google has also agreed to remove paid-for advertising content for persistent offenders.

“The big companies almost always immediately comply,” Lord Smith says. “We will carry on trying to get the message through to small vloggers and bloggers. It’s in their interests: they trade on their authenticity.”

A belief in the importance of truthfulness was the first thing Lord Smith brought to his post at the ASA. The second is a belief in the importance of the industry: advertising contributes £120bn to UK GDP, a higher proportion than any other country in the world, and employs one million people.

“I was very conscious of the importance of advertising to the economy as its own entity – design, creativity and the things that go to make advertising exciting,” Lord Smith says, “but also that it oils the wheels of everything else. Without ads, the modern economy cannot function.”

It’s this aspect that worries him most after Brexit. The industry is known to struggle when the economy takes a nosedive. “I suspect that we will see a rocky few years,” he says.

While the rules themselves currently fall under EU consumer protection regulation, Lord Smith expects they will come under UK law and continue to operate in the same way.

Personally, Lord Smith says he is a “proud and passionate” Remainer. “The decision to leave is probably the worst economic and political decision this country has made during my lifetime,” he says, sadly.

He believes the UK should hold a second referendum once the terms of the exit are clear. “I think the results could well be different,” he says. “I hope they would be.”

I ask if he believes people were misled during the referendum. “Yes,” he says. “The campaign on both sides was terrible.”

He notes that the ASA relinquished responsibility for monitoring political adverts 20 years ago. Unlike the advertising industry, which supports and co-operates with the ASA to safeguard its own survival, politicians refuse to “buy in” to a similar system. Despite this, the ASA received 350 complaints about referendum adverts, suggesting there is some appetite for regulating political advertising.

Towards the end of the interview, I notice a framed Glenmorangie advert on the wall that features a couple on a sofa in the mountains of Scotland. Lord Smith is a keen hiker. He has climbed all 282 of the Scottish Munros – mountains over 3000ft. Some he’s scaled more than once.

“I love that image,” he says. The poster, along with several other framed adverts, will stay in the office when Lord Smith leaves. But the philosophy will travel with him. When I ask him again what’s next, he says: “Every unclimbed mountain is a challenge that still needs to be done.”