Self-regulation isn’t all it’s advertised to be

Every month or so, Pricewatch gets a mail from the good people at the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland announcing what they have been up to. Mostly, what they have been up to is handling complaints from television viewers, radio listeners and newspaper readers enraged by something.

Frequently the complaints are on the faintly ridiculous side of the spectrum. Earlier this year, for example, a dog-training school fell foul of the authority after being accused of broadcasting an ad which, it was claimed, “belittled” men.

The ad featured a telephone conversation between a male employee of the dog training school and a female customer making an enquiry.

The full script read as follows:

"Man: Hello [redacted] Dog Training Academy.

Customer: “Are you able to help my Oscar behave better?”

Man: “Of course madam. We are Ireland’s largest training centre.”

Customer: “Right. Can I book Oscar in?”

Man: “And what breed of dog is Oscar?”

Customer: “He’s not a dog. He’s my husband.”

The ASAI received two complaints, both from men. One said he considered “the advertisement to be part of a trend where men are belittled, mocked, painted as idiots and, in this case, compared to dogs”. He expressed the opinion that “the advertisement was sexist, centred around discrimination on gender which was not permitted under Irish law”. A second complainant agreed and added that he “did not want his children to have to listen to this type of advertising”.

While both complainants are – obviously – correct, the same objections could be made about Peppa Pig, The Simpsons and virtually ever ad ever made. An appropriate response from the ASAI – and indeed everyone – might have been an eye thrown towards the heavens. But it investigated the complaints as it is bound to do.

The dog people acknowledged receipt of ASAI’s correspondence and said the matter would be discussed at their next marketing planning meeting, but no further communication was received from the company – whose name we’re deliberately leaving out so as to avoid giving them publicity – so it was automatically found to be in breach of the rules.

That example does more to highlight the extreme sensitivities some people have when listening to the radio, but most of the complaints the authority gets are more nuanced and it does stand as a lonely gatekeeper guarding us from the worst imaginings of the advertising sector’s “creatives”.

Or at least it tries to.

Readers with good memories may remember a controversy blew up over crisps a few years ago. More specifically, the controversy focused on a series of Hunky Dory ads. In 2010 Largo, the company which makes the crisps, ran a deliberately provocative rugby-themed campaign showing women in suggestive poses. The campaign attracted a huge amount of attention and more than 300 complaints, and was eventually condemned by the ASAI.

‘Exploitative’

A year later, and in spite of the condemnation,

Largo Foods

unveiled a virtually identical campaign featuring scantily-clad models, this time playing Gaelic football. That add attracted 82 complaints, with most stating that the advertisement was “offensive, exploitative, tasteless, degrading and sexist”.

Largo Foods did not respond to the authority when it flagged concerns about that campaign. The ASAI’s regulation committee found it had “deliberately flouted the code with the intention of generating complaints, PR and subsequent notoriety”. However, it had no direct power of sanction over Largo Foods, as it was is not a member of the authority.

So the company got all the publicity – publicity money could not buy – in exchange for a rap on the knuckles that it probably did not even feel.

It is just one reason why statutory regulation rather than self-regulation would offer consumers more protection. Another problem is that the ASAI is funded by the advertising industry it is supposed to protect us against. But there is no sign of the State stepping into the role – and even less sign of it funding the authority – so we are where we are.

While the authority may be flawed in many respects it is still has an important role to play. Last Thursday, it unveiled a new Code of Standards for Advertising and Marketing in Ireland which will come into force in March of next year. It is the product of a comprehensive review involving public consultation, Government departments and agencies, consumer groups and other NGOs as well.

“We live in a world of ever-changing communication channels and platforms,” said ASAI chairman Sean O’Meara in the code’s foreword. “It seems, particularly in all digital areas, that new, innovative and immediate means of creating and delivering persuasive yet responsible communications are challenging all elements of the advertising and marketing professions.”

Which is why the new code is needed. That and the fact that some of the categories to be covered did not exist five years ago. Such as e-cigarettes. There is a brand new section on vaping, and under the new rules “marketing communications for e-cigarettes should be socially responsible and should contain nothing which promotes the use of a tobacco product or shows the use of a tobacco product in a positive light”.

The ads “cannot encourage non-smokers or non-nicotine users to use e-cigarettes and should not be likely to appeal particularly to anyone under 18, especially by reflecting or being associated with youth culture”.

There is also a new section on gambling. It states that “all advertisements for gambling services or products shall contain a message to encourage responsible gambling and shall direct people to a source of information about gambling and gambling responsibly”.

Critics of an industry which, while totally legal, can and does wreak havoc on the personal lives and finances of thousands of problem gamblers would be right to raise an eyebrow, and the notion that a tag line directing people to sources of information about problem gambling will probably not do much to save many people from themselves but, again, it is all we have.

The sections of the code which relate to food have been updated and bring Irish rules into line with EU regulation concerning nutritional and health claims. The EU regulation on nutrition and health claims is mandatory and seeks to protect consumers from misleading or false claims.

Children

There are also new rules which target advertising aimed at children. “Except those for fresh fruit or fresh vegetables, marketing communications should not seem to encourage children to eat or drink a product only to take advantage of a promotional offer: the product should be offered on its merits, with the offer as an added incentive,” the new rules state.

There are also new rules in the health and beauty section which have been designed to ensure that marketing communications for medicines, medical devices, treatments, health-related products and beauty products receive the necessary high level of scrutiny.

The rules in the environmental section, meanwhile, are designed to ensure that marketing communications do not exaggerate the environmental benefits to consumers of products or services.

This should stop energy companies in particular dressing up their ads to create the impression they are Mother Earth’s best friend and should halt some of the more outrageous examples of greenwashing, a practice which sees a company overstate its green principles in order to cash in on consumers’ environmental concerns.