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Strategic Brand Signalling: Trade Marks, Advertising, and Body Image Perceptions in the UK - Roundtable (invite only) - 12:30 to 18:00 on 16 June 2025 - Bentham House, WC1H 0EG, London
Strategic Brand Signalling: Trade Marks, Advertising, and Body Image Perceptions in the UK
About the Conference
How do commercial messages shape our perception of beauty and health? Recent regulatory initiatives suggest growing concern about this question. The 2022 House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee investigation revealed concerning impacts that 'online content that promotes an idealised, often doctored and unrealistic body image' has on wellbeing. The investigation called for ‘a comprehensive cross-government strategy’ to tackle body dissatisfaction through education about self-worth and body positivity. It also recommended 'further regulation of advertisements on social media'.
In response, the Government introduced the Online Advertising Programme in 2023, aiming to create a targeted regulatory framework focused on illegal advertising and protecting under-18s online. This included establishing a ministerial-led taskforce to improve evidence gathering on illegal harms and enhance existing industry initiatives. The Online Advertising Taskforce’s 2023-24 progress report highlights collaborative efforts between government and the advertising sector through six industry-led working groups addressing online harms. The Advertising Standards Authority’s 2024 Body Image Review went further, specifically highlighting how cultural and social factors create body image concerns that advertising regulations alone cannot effectively address. This recognition of broader societal influences marks a significant shift in understanding the limitations of current regulatory frameworks.
These developments raise important questions about the relationship between trade mark law and advertising standards. Indeed, whilst trade marks are private property rights, they remain subject to public interest safeguards resembling those in advertising regulation, with both regimes prohibiting messaging likely to deceive or undermine social values such as respect for consumers’ wellbeing and body diversity. This convergence gains significance as trade mark case law has long recognised the advertising and communication functions of modern trade marks. Against this background, could closer alignment between the advertising regulatory framework and trade mark law better protect consumers from messaging that contributes to negative body image?
Our Roundtable, jointly hosted by the University of Warwick and University College London, and forming the inaugural session of the IBIL Trade Mark and Social Justice series, brings together legal practitioners, academics, regulators, marketing and beauty professionals to explore:
- How brand messaging in the health and beauty sector shapes consumer perceptions
- Current regulatory framework for health and beauty product claims
- Grounds for refusing registration of deceptive/immoral trade marks and on public policy grounds
- Potential alignment of standards across advertising regulatory regimes and trade mark law.
The Roundtable will consider Dr Luminita Olteanu’s forthcoming research paper which compares trade mark law’s approach to deceptiveness with standards in misleading advertising regulations, and contribute further to this important conversation under the Chatham House rule.
- Roundtable Programme
Roundtable Programme
12:45
Arrivals and light lunch
13:30
Welcome
Background to the Roundtable
Roundtable aims and themes
Professor Sir Robin Jacob, UCL Faculty of Laws
Dr Luminita Olteanu, University of Warwick
Professor Ilanah Fhima, UCL Faculty of Laws
14:00
Panel 1:
Who shapes our perceptions of health and beauty norms?
Chair: Professor Heather Widdows, Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick
Discussants:
Dr Bryony Davies, University of East Anglia
Millie Kendall OBE, CEO, British Beauty Council
14:50
Break
15:05
Panel 2:
Controversial health and beauty claims: advertising regulation and social science perspectives
Chair: Dr Luminita Olteanu, University of Warwick
Discussants:
Professor Francesca Solmi, UCL Division of Psychiatry
Cherie Leung, Regulatory Policy Executive, Advertising Standards Authority
15:55
Break
16:10
Panel 3:
Controversial health and beauty trade marks: registration standards, misleading marks and public policy considerations
Chair: The Hon. Mr Justice James Mellor, High Court of England & Wales
Discussants:
Professor Phillip Johnson, University of Cardiff
Dr Jasem Tarawneh, Queen Mary University of London
17:00
Open discussions
Chairs: Professor Ilanah Fhima and Dr Luminita Olteanu
17:45
Roundtable close
18:00
Dinner
- Our Convenors
Dr Luminiţa Olteanu is Assistant Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Warwick Law School. Dr Olteanu’s research interests centre on the relationship between law and society, with particular attention to legal norms, technology and assumptions about consumer behaviour in the commercial context. Dr Olteanu’s work explores how emerging technologies and shifting consumer practices impact trade mark law, revealing gaps between legal presumptions and actual market dynamics. Her publications examine the influence of commercial messages on body image dissatisfaction, trade mark dilution, and the unintended consequences of rebranding strategies.
Professor Ilanah Fhima holds a Chair in Intellectual Property Law and is co-director of the UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL). Ilanah’s recent research aims to track the real world impact of trade marks, by focussing particularly on the needs of minority and marginalised groups whose interests can be easily overlooked within our trade mark system.
- Our Panel Chairs
The Hon Mr Justice James Mellor is a judge of the Chancery Division of the High Court of England and Wales with a specialisation in intellectual property cases. Mr Justice Mellor is also a co-author of Kerly’s Law of Trade Marks and Trade Names, the authoritative text that has provided clear guidance on all aspects of UK trade mark law since 1894. His extensive experience in patent, trade mark and design litigation informs his judicial approach to intellectual property cases.
Professor Heather Widdows is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick School of Law. Professor Widdows has extensive expertise in applied ethics, global ethics, bioethics, moral philosophy and feminist philosophy. Vogue described Professor Widdows’ recent book, Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal, as ‘ground-breaking’. Professor Widdows gave written evidence before the UK Parliament during its 2022 inquiry titled ‘The impact of body image on mental and physical health’.
- Our Discussants
Dr Bryony Davies is a Financial Wellbeing Researcher at the Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia. Her research centres on investigating female body image and specifically the role social media plays in its perception. Dr Davis gave written evidence before the UK Parliament during its 2022 inquiry titled ‘The impact of body image on mental and physical health’.
Professor Phillip Johnson is Professor of Commercial Law at the School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University. He is a practicing barrister and sits as an Appointed Person hearing appeals from the UKIPO in trade mark cases. He has published extensively on trade mark law and is the editor of Intellectual Property Quarterly.
Millie Kendall OBE is CEO of the British Beauty Council, retail maven and brand creator, Millie Kendall has been instrumental in the success of cult brands including Shu Uemura, Aveda, Tweezerman, L’Occitane and Ruby & Millie. Having worked with the UK’s leading retailers, Millie has been creating and marketing beauty brands for the past 30 years. Millie was awarded an MBE in 2007 for her services to the cosmetic industry, and an OBE in 2022 for services to the hair and beauty industry.
Cherie Leung holds a law degree from the London School of Economics and completed the Legal Practice Course. She currently serves as a Regulatory Policy Executive with extensive experience in regulatory policy, consumer complaints investigation and dispute resolution. Ms Leung led the Advertising Standards Authority's body image project and demonstrates a particular interest in equality, diversity and inclusion, serving as one of the ASA's Equality and Diversity Officers.
Professor Francesca Solmi is Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at UCL. Professor Solmi’s research examines the development and trajectories of eating disorders, body image, and associated mental health outcomes across the life course, work that has been cited by the UCL Social Research Institute in the House of Commons investigation on 'The impact of body image on mental and physical health’. Another strand of her research investigates the effects of social media, using LLMs to identify those with and at risk of eating disorders from social media posts and predict changes in symptoms over time, as well as triangulating social media data, smartwatch/smartphone and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data to understand associations between social media use, social interactions, environments and body dissatisfaction.
Dr Jasem Tarawneh is Senior Lecturer in Commercial and Intellectual Property Law at Queen Mary, University of London, where he is also Director for the Specialist Intellectual Property Law Programmes. Dr Tarawneh worked as a corporate lawyer and arbitrator before entering academia, where his research focuses on intellectual property, international dispute resolution, and international trade and investment. During his career, he has gained extensive experience working with organizations including WIPO, EUIPO and UKIPO.
- Background materials
- House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee Investigation (2022) - Report on body image impact on mental and physical health
- Online Advertising Programme in 2023
- Online Advertising Taskforce’s 2023-24 progress report
- ASA Body Image Review (2024) - Final statement on body image in advertising
- Case studies - a collection of trade marks and ASA enforcement actions in the health and beauty sector.
The Convenors would like to thank the following institutions whose generosity and support has made this conference possible:
- The School of Law, University of Warwick
- UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL)
Conference photo by Daniel Apodaca on Unsplash.
