It's worth noting that Ad Standards is the industry self-regulatory body. They don't do anything pro-actively, and nothing they do is legally enforceable. They don't have the power to issue fines or enforce takedowns and all their recommendations are just that -- recommendations. Member organisations tend to abide by the industry rules, but they themselves had a hand in writing those rules. All that really amounts to is the occasional withdrawal of an ad -after- it's been running long enough to have complaints received and reviewed. In the meantime, the damage is frequently already done. More frequently it's a case of "we have investigated ourselves and found we've done nothing wrong" (note the number of "no breach" decisions in the article). Non-members, OTOH, are under no obligation to do anything at all (the Gotham City ad in the article is still running AFAIK, despite being declared a breach -- Gotham City are not a member of Ad Standards). All it really does is acts as a way for people to feel like their complaints are being heard while fundamentally changing nothing.