5 May 2025
At the 2025 ICC meeting, key updates were shared on advancing ethical advertising practices, including new policies on responsible AI use, environmental claims, and marketing to children—emphasizing the importance of transparency, inclusivity, and public trust.
ICC reaffirmed its commitment to global collaboration, working with partners like EASA, ISO, and ESOMAR to align standards and promote responsible business conduct in advertising and communication.
Some key highlights
David Bates, Vice Chair, Europe, Public & Government Affairs, Edelman presented an overview of the 2025 Trust Barometer, providing key insights into the evolving landscape for businesses and societal sentiment.
Despite businesses being more trusted than government, media and NGOs, there is a call for them to address more topical issues. This reinforces the recent ICC Advertising and Marketing Communication Code updates, including Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI), ensuring it guides businesses in tackling these critical concerns responsibly and ethically. All institutions must collaborate to rebuild trust.
There was an update on the revision on the revision process/ new policy papers, all derived from the ICC Code, from leads of each of the workstreams and dialogue with the members:
New policy product on the responsible use of AI in advertising (Alice Himsworth / Alexander Montgomery). A policy paper on the responsible use of AI in advertising, highlighting its pivotal role in the industry. There is still time to get involved, give feedback and help shape these important guidelines. Key concerns: transparency, labelling, privacy, bias, creation & delivery of ads and copyright.
Updates on the ICC Framework for Responsible Environmental Marketing Communications, including a checklist as a starting point for practitioners (Sheila Miller)
Revisions to the ICC / European Society for Opinion and Market Research (ESOMAR) International Code on Market, Opinion and Social Research and Data Analytics: the public is an important stakeholder (Anders Stenlund / Judith Passingham)
Revisions to the ICC Framework for Responsible Alcohol Marketing Communications (Laura Brodie / Gabrielle Robitaille). A milestone bringing all the platforms together and publish transparency reports.
Revisions to the ICC Framework for Responsible Food and Beverage Marketing Communications (Gabrielle Robitaille)
Revision of the ICC Toolkit: Marketing and Advertising to Children along with a new policy paper related to responsible advertising/marketing to children and teens (Adam Ingle / Sheila Millar
More general was stated that ICC is not a single topic association, but addresses broad current topics. Topics effecting everybody in the ecosystem every day. Having an informal dialogue about these topics helps to deal with them. ICC aims to contribute to trust in the marketplace, so the business community is trusted and can perform.
Ludovic Basset, new Director at the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA), and Tudor Manda, Self-Regulation (SR) Development Manager, presented an overview of EASA’s network and efforts in promoting responsible advertising through Self-Regulation-Organizations (SROs) enforcement of ad standards inspired by the ICC Code. They also shared insights on how ICC and EASA can strengthen collaboration.
Then the latest European and International regulatory developments related to marketing and advertising were briefly discussed.
Finally, Noela Garcia, Head of Sustainability and Partnerships, International Organization for Standardization (ISO), provided an introduction to ISO and collaboration prospects.
Opportunities for ICC: participate in international Standards development or other deliverables and create coherence /alignment on existing standards, participate in/co-create flagship programmes, e.g., climate and sustainability and capacity building initiatives. Facilitating collaboration between national chambers of commerce and national standards bodies to convey national trade interests in international standardization and jointly design and implement advocacy/promotional activities to advance shared vision and mission.
International collaboration for responsible leadership: a shoutout to the international partners and stakeholders – EASA, as well as all national Self-Regulatory Organisations, ESOMAR, International Alliance for Responsible Drinking (IARD), and ISO for their valuable contributions and collaboration.
ICC remains committed to building trust and leading the way in ethical marketing and advertising through the ICC Advertising and Marketing Communications Code. This Code is now available in many languages, including Dutch →