It's a tough time to be in advertising. Sector-by-sector from cigarettes, to alcohol, to junk food and, soon it seems, cars, advertising restrictions are backing the industry into a corner in terms of regulations and restrictions on what can and can't be said.
The question is whether it has all gone too far with so many checks and balances to "protect" the masses when a commercial about eating an egg for breakfast or a radio ad about an advice and support line breaches codes.
Last month the plans by the British Egg Information Service to re-run the famous TV ad from the 1960s featuring Tony Hancock - to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the "go to work on an egg" strapline - fell foul of the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre.
The BACC felt that the ad "goes against what is now the generally accepted advice of a varied diet" and would only have been fine if the ad presented the egg as part of a balanced breakfast.
Now Shelter has fallen foul of the radio's equivalent, the RACC, for an ad campaign that promotes its housing advice service because the ads are deemed to be too political and 'denigrate' the government and its services.
The ads, which admittedly point out that there is a three-year 1.6m person waiting list for council houses, were deemed to breach the 2003 Communications Act which bans political advertising because the ads could, as the act says, be seen as trying to "influence public opinion on a matter of controversy".
This is a complex issue. Organisations such as the RSPCA, Amnesty International and Make Poverty History have run into similar difficulties. Animal Defenders International even challenged the act by taking a case to court.
The Advertising Standards Authority revealed that last year 2,421 ads were "changed or withdrawn" last year as a result of action it had taken.
A record 12,842 advertising campaigns received complaints.
Does that mean that the UK ad industry is struggling to cope with an overbearing burden of rules and regulatory processes?
Or just that there is a hell of a lot of deliberate flaunting of regulations - shock advertising, such as Barnardos recent f**k ad that is being investigated by the ASA probably should be censured.
Or is there a chance that when it comes to advertising the UK is becoming a nanny state and a nation of complainers? Should the Shelter and Tony Hancock egg ads have been banned?
