National Advertising Division (2024)

The U.S. advertising industry founded the National Advertising Division (NAD) and the National Advertising Review Boardin 1971 as a system of independent industry self-regulation to build consumer trust in advertising and support fair competition in the marketplace. NAD holds national advertising across all media types to high standards of truth and accuracy by reviewing truth-in-advertising challenges from businesses, trade associations, consumers, or on its own initiative. Through its work, thousands of misleading advertising claims have been removed from the marketplace and NAD’s case decisions represent the single largest body of advertising law in the country.

NAD Challenges

As part of its public interest mission to ensure consumers receive truthful and accurate advertising messages, NAD initiates approximately 20-25% of its cases each year based on its own monitoring of advertising in a wide variety of product categories. The goal of NAD’s monitoring cases is to expand the universe of advertising claims that are reviewed for truth and transparency and provide guidance for future advertising. In determining whether to open a monitoring case, NAD considers whether the advertising meets one or more of the following criteria:

• Targets a vulnerable population (elderly, children, special needs, etc.);
• Capitalizes on consumer fears or misunderstanding;
• Fills a gap in regulatory efforts of the FTC and state AGs;
• Addresses novel or emerging issue of interest for the advertising industry;
• Concerns claims that consumers cannot evaluate for themselves;
• Achieves diversity among industries that historically participate in self-regulation.

Frequently Asked Questions

BBB National Programs provides summaries of all case decisions in the Case Decision Summary library. For the full text of National Advertising Division, National Advertising Review Board, and Children’s Advertising Review Unit decisions, subscribe to the Online Archive. For members of the press, the full text of any BBB National Programs decision is available by emailing the request to press@bbbnp.org.