Last year, the Advertising Board imposed a fine of 92.4 million Turkish lira on misleading advertisements, such as dark commercial designs and discounted sales, which deceive consumers.

The Ministry of Trade published the Advertising Board Report for 2024, which includes monitoring of advertisements, consumer rights, deceptive commercial practices, and sectoral regulations. The Board focused on advertisements that have misled consumers or are prohibited in 2024. “Dark commercial designs” are defined as applications predominantly found on internet interfaces that lead consumers to unfavorable choices, deceive, or manipulate them. With the rise of digital markets, these designs came under the Board’s radar, and it was determined that this issue had qualities that could disrupt consumers’ economic behavior.

FORTUNE TELLER AND MEDIUM ADVERTISEMENTS BANNED Fortune teller, medium, astrologer, and illegal betting and gambling advertisements remain among the banned promotions. When files reviewed at the Advertising Board were examined by sector, the “other goods and services” sector, where complaints mainly focus on dark commercial designs, discounted sales, and services with banned advertising, ranked first in 2024. Accordingly, violations were detected in 533 files in this sector, 345 were fined for stopping the advertisement, and 188 received administrative fines and stopped the ad. As a result, administrative fines totaling 92.4 million Turkish lira were issued for non-compliant advertisements reviewed in the “other goods and services” sector. BEAUTY SALONS UNDER SCRUTINY Following the “other goods and services” sector, 423 files in the health sector ads were monitored. Additionally, the Board put beauty salon advertisements in its sights last year, examining 87 files. While 236 advertisements in the health sector were deemed non-compliant and halted, administrative fines and advertisement suspensions were considered appropriate for 187 of them. The Advertising Board decided to impose administrative fines of 87.8 million Turkish lira on non-compliant healthcare advertisements last year. 38 MILLION LIRA FINE FOR THE FOOD SECTOR Advertising campaigns targeting the food sector formed the agenda of the Board in 2024, becoming one of the sectors with the highest number of applications. During this period, a total of 284 files were reviewed by the Board, 100 of which were “nutritional supplement” ads in the food sector. Of these, 253 were found to be non-compliant with regulations, while no violations were found in 31 files. With a decision to halt 92 non-compliant food sector ads and apply fines to 161, the Advertising Board imposed administrative fines totaling 38.2 million Turkish lira on the advertisements. Among the other sectors fined with administrative penalties were cosmetics and cleaning products with 17.5 million lira, durable consumer goods and technology with 12.7 million lira, communications with 9.2 million lira, financial services with 5.5 million lira, tobacco and alcohol with 4 million lira, and tourism with 2.8 million lira. Concurrently, 7.1 million lira in fines were imposed for covert advertisements during this period, while illegal betting and gambling ads received a penalty of 6 million lira. 84% OF ADVERTISEMENTS ON INSTAGRAM The Board also scrutinized advertisements on social media, another area where advertisements have intensified due to the widespread digitization. Out of 1917 files concerning digital platforms, 707 were related to advertisements on social media. Approximately 84% of these advertisements were found to be on Instagram, where 592 ads were discussed. Instagram was followed by Facebook with 48, Youtube with 46, X with 12, TikTok with 6, and LinkedIn with 3.