Our annual Advertising and Marketing Law Review 2026 saw experts Brinsley Dresden, Geraint Lloyd-Taylor, Becky Moore, and Jen Dinmore unpack a year of seismic shifts form 2025 and scan the horizon for changes coming in 2026. From AI-powered ad monitoring to a crackdown on fake reviews, here are the essential insights you need to stay compliant.

ASA updates and decisions

We started by looking at the ASA's annual report, especially the ASA's active ad monitoring system, their AI tool for scanning the internet to find ads in problematic sectors such as weight loss drugs and cosmetic surgery overseas.  When Brinsley spoke to Guy Parker at his fireside chat in 2025, he indicated that the system looked at a staggering 30 million ads in 2025.

The ASA issued rulings about Superdry, Nike and Lacoste on sustainability claims.  The key learning here was that brands should carefully review their use of AI to enhance search terms.  Using AI in this way has also caused various problems, including in relation to alcohol and environmental claims in the fashion sector.

We also discussed a TV ad for Sanex which the ASA felt perpetuated negative stereotypes about people with dark skin tones. With hindsight, it is quite surprising that this ad was approved by Clearcast. 

In the autumn, Guy intimated that we are expecting an imminent judicial review decision involving the ASA. Adfree Cities brought a claim against the ASA's own ads about its services, and the ASA said it couldn't review its own advertising. Adfree has complained about the ASA refusing to investigate out of remit ads. We await the decision and whether it was brought by Adfree Cities.

DMCC Act

Consumer law underwent momentous changes in 2025 and is set to continue to do so in 2026 and beyond. Since April, the CMA has much-increased powers to impose large fines up to 10% of and daily financial penalties for businesses not cooperating with their investigations.  Back in April, the CMA issued guidance, in July it carried out a sweep of websites to see if they were complying with the new rules about fake reviews and wrote to 54 businesses about their practices.

Pricing is a key focus for the CMA. In November it announced eight new investigations – five about drip pricing issues, and three concerning time-limited offers and whether consumers were being opted into additional services by default.  The latter points are easy for the CMA to find if it reviews customer journeys on websites. And it wrote to 100 more companies across a wide range of sectors to warn them about their practices. If you received one of those letters, you should be reviewing all your consumer-facing pricing practices. 

The CMA is taking a strict approach to reference pricing (was £Y, now £Z claims).  However, Emma Sleep hasn't taken this lying down (pun intended) and has refused to change its practices to reflect the CMA's view that sales data should demonstrate a significant proportion of goods at a higher price to be able to use it as a reference price with a 2:1 ratio. A court date has been set for next June, so we can expect more clarity this autumn.  This is being pursued under the old law – it would be more difficult for Emma Sleep to push back on this under the new law. 

As well as pricing, the CMA is focusing on fake reviews, unfair contract terms, giving objectively false information to consumers, as well as sectors related to essential spend.

And not to forget the new regime on subscriptions requiring businesses to give much more information to consumers and provide more cooling off and termination rights, among other things.  It has been delayed to the autumn of this year to give businesses time to make the required changes.  We are waiting for the final guidance, including on refund rights.

Finally, Geraint also highlighted the guidance on pricing practices from the CTSI which was updated last year.

Less healthy foods

Becky took us through the new rules on advertising less health foods which have been in force for about ten days, which restrict advertising of identifiable less healthy foods on TV and ban it in paid for online advertising. This applies to any ad featuring identifiable less healthy foods, not just the manufacturers and retailers. Another key point to note is that LHF are not the same as HFSS foods, they are a subset of HFSS food and drink so even if you fall outside the exemptions, you still need to comply with the HFSS regime.  There are some quirky exclusions from the LHF regime such as sausage rolls...

Given that the restriction online, we receive queries about what 'paid-for' means.  If an influencer creates its own content which a brand then uses on their own website, that wouldn't be paid-for.  However, it would include sponsorship arrangements, paid posts, gifting and affiliated links.  The LHF regime doesn't contain a concept of control so the ASA's usual approach to influencer content may not apply here.

Becky also discussed the complex brand advertising exemption – to fall within the exemption, avoid brand characters who are tied to a well-known less healthy foods.  It might also be more difficult to fall within the exemption if you have a really recognisable shape for your product.

Check your products against the two-stage test – foods must be HFSS AND score a 4 or above on the nutrient profiling model. It's surprising how many foods don't meet the second test.

Don't forget the food promotion regulations which ban volume price promotions and free refills of less healthy drinks (including hot chocolate, despite the fact you can put unlimited sugar in your free coffee refill).

Watch for ASA rulings, and make sure your teams are trained.

Green claims: so last season?

The ASA is becoming more comfortable with a nuanced approach to green claims.  Brinsley discussed three rulings which the ASA published on the same day (a common practice now to make a splash).  The first related to Barclays Investment Bank which advertised "a more sustainable future" and a complainant challenged the omission of Barclays contribution to greenhouse emissions.  It had appeared in The Economist and the ASA said its readers wouldn't interpret it as its overall brand activity or its own emissions profile.

The second ruling related to a TV ad by Shell who've been in trouble before with the ASA in recent years. The complaint was that the ad focused on low-carbon activities and ignored high-carbon activities. Shell included a disclaimer about the spread of its activities, and the ASA said the ad did not mislead about the overall environmental impact.

The third ruling referred to Total Energy's ad about its wind farms. In this case the ASA did uphold the complaint, as it ignored their other activities, which are predominantly higher carbon ones.

Next, Brinsley talked about the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive which must be implemented by September 2026 and creates new banned practices such as claims that rely on offsetting and vague or unsubstantiated claims.  Traders will need to provide information about repair options. The Directive also expands misleading actions to include false impressions about the environmental impact of a product.

In 2025 the European Commission indicated that it wasn't taking the Green Claims Directive forward, but it may be revived at some point.

Fake and misleading reviews

This is a priority area for the CMA, and it may well bring a case this year. Jen took us through the new rules about fake and misleading reviews and tips on how to comply. The CMA is looking for a prevention policy that is easy to find on your website.  Make sure that if you incentivise your reviews that you label them as such. Also assess the risk of consumers encountering fake reviews on your website and think about what you can put in place to reduce that risk such as notification and removal tools.

Horizon scanning: what else is on the horizon for 2026?

The ASA has ten key objectives in its annual report – a key one is being proactive. It will be carrying on looking at green claims for example in dairy and plant-based alternatives and plans to expand its AI monitoring still further. 

The government is making more changes to the so-called sugar tax in 2028 and will lower the threshold and include milk-based drinks. Pricing for bundles such as sandwich and a soft drink has to be very transparent.

Another watch-out is the Tobacco and Vapes Bill which is passing through parliament and will ban the existing ban on tobacco advertising and give the government wider powers to create regulations about how to display those products.

Regarding AI and disclosures, there isn't a general disclosure requirement in the UK, but the EU does require much more in the way of disclosures.  Take care if you create deepfakes as you will need disclosures and an AI-generated testimonial will be unfair. AI is also being used in mass-produced ads which can lead to substantiation issues, as well as reproducing products across the whole spectrum and it is important that in that case the reproduction is reflective of the real-world product.

Don't forget the Online Safety Act either – it contains provisions for large platforms and search engines to prevent fraudulent advertising and Ofcom will consult on a code this year to come into force next year.

Ofcom is also reviewing broadcast regulation, including the amount and scheduling of advertising.  It is asking if the current rules should be relaxed to support public service broadcasters.

From May there will be a voluntary code for companies which offer free and paid-for prize draws. It generally wouldn't apply to those who only offer free prize draws, but if it's not honoured the government may issue legislation which could affect all prize draws in the future.

As we have the Men's World Cup this year as well as various other sports events Geraint reminded us about the rules about ambush marketing and amongst other things don't breach event trade marks or give away tickets to events if you are not an official sponsor.

Finally, Jen talked about the proposed EU's Digital Fairness Act which is likely to address dark patterns and drip pricing and we are waiting for the draft later this year.

Thank you to all those that joined us. We have sent out copies of the slides and a recording of the webinar to all those who registered. Please let us know if you would also like a copy by emailing brinsley.dresden@lewissilkin.com and we will shortly  release a podcast (or even a vodcast) when we'll run through  the questions that we didn't get to at the end of the webinar.