ASRC Announces New Leadership for National Advertising Review Board

For Immediate Release

Contact: Lee Peeler, CEO, ASRC, 212.705.0100

Kenneth A. Plevan will chair the appellate body

New York, NY – Feb. 28, 2019 – The Advertising Self-Regulatory Council (ASRC) announced the appointment of Kenneth A. Plevan as chair of the National Advertising Review Board (NARB), effective March 1, 2019.

Plevan succeeds Wally Snyder and Alan Cohen who have served as chair and vice chair since 2015. Plevan will become the ninth chair since the creation of NARB in 1971.

NARB serves as the court of appeals for the advertising industry’s self-regulatory system. This prestigious body is made up of 70 advertising-industry professionals and public members chosen for their stature and experience. Five member NARB panels review decisions made by the National Advertising Division (NAD) and the Children’s Advertising Review Unit, if those decisions are appealed.

“NARB plays a key role in the advertising self-regulatory system that provides a system for prompt, voluntary discontinuance of advertising not meeting high industry standards for truth and accuracy,” said C. Lee Peeler, ASRC president and CEO. “The work of the NARB panels personifies the advertising industry’s commitment to those high standards.”

Plevan is a nationally recognized expert in advertising law. For 44 years, he practiced in the New York offices of the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He joined Skadden in 1974 after clerking in federal district court in the New York and serving in the United States Air Force. He is the author of numerous articles on advertising law and a treatise on the subject.

ASRC commended both Snyder and Cohen for their work as chair and vice chair of NARB for the last five years. Peeler noted, “During that period, they ably handled a growing number of appeals with unstinting professionalism that has continued to advance the reputation of advertising self-regulation as a fair, effective, expert forum to ensure the accuracy and truthfulness of advertising claims.”

Snyder, who serves as the executive director of the Institute for Advertising Ethics, will continue to serve as chair emeritus of NARB. Cohen has assumed another position working with national programs administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus.