Business information

Guidance notes for the Point of Sale Advertising of tobacco

On December 21st 2004, new regulations, The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion (Point of Sale) Regulations 2004 came into force. These Regulations strictly control the amount of advertising permitted where tobacco products are sold.
These regulations ensure that advertising of tobacco, which has already been banned on billboards and in newspapers and magazines, is very strictly controlled at the Point of Sale, with the maximum area of advertising being restricted to A5 in size.

It is an offence to advertise in any way other than within the strictly controlled guidelines.

What will this mean ?

In practical terms, it is no longer possible to advertise tobacco products within your premises other than at point of sale and any advertising that you do will be restricted to an A5 size in total.
Posters in shop windows , sandwich boards outside premises , awnings that carry a tobacco brand or logo that advertise tobacco products are therefore prohibited.

What is meant by Point of Sale ?

This is the point where your gantry or display unit is fixed. You may therefore advertise at this place but no where else in the premises. If you have more than one point of sale within the premises then you may only advertise at one point. (If the premises are occupied by more than one business, then each business within the premises may have one point of sale).

What sort of advert can I have ?

The advert must be 2 dimensional and may be one single advert or several provided that the total area does not exceed A5 in size.

The advert can include the following information:

• the name , or emblem or any other feature of the tobacco product
• the price of a packet and the size that the price relates to

The advert must include the warning :

• "Smoking Kills "or "Smoking seriously harms you and others around you "
• and
• "NHS Smoking Helpline 0800 1690169"

You may not have any advertisement that is displayed electronically on a screen or contains a moving image or background or an image that changes colour or is lit by flashing lights.