Advertising Regulations and Offensiveness Concern - Essay Example

Do you agree government should have no authority in the third component of advertising ethics? --------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Author Note --------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Introduction Wally Snyder, President Emeritus, American Advertising Federation, has remarked that there are three components of advertising ethics. These are i) truth, ii) fairness and iii) taste and decency. When advertising takes place with the confines of these three parameters, any resultant activity can be said to be happening with ethical limits. The truthfulness of advertising is the most binding attribute since dissemination of any false knowledge about a product can result in the company being sued. It is because the component of truth is governed by government rules and regulations. The rules also apply to the other two components in slight variations from the first one. While the 'truth being communicated' can be matched with the product specifications, fairness and taste and decency are fragile terms and cannot be bound by certain umbrella regulations. Fairness, for example, according to Snyder, includes both nature of the product or service and the audience; taste and decency are subjective terms which can grossly differ from one customer to another. What one customer could find 'tasteful' and 'decent' in, for example, a body lotion may be considered as distasteful and indecent by another customer. Explanations of taste and decency vary greatly from subject to subject and thus, argues Snyder, should not be bound by government regulations. Advertising regulations Advertising is one of the important tools of a free market and different nations control advertising and even poke a nose into its ethical side differently. But this advertising-free market link is multifaceted and strong. It has been a perennial point of debate how can advertising regulation be congruent with the concept of a free market? Free flow of information about products and services forms the cornerstone of a thriving economy. This is because decision-making is influenced by being equipped with adequate amount of information on a product or service. Each consumer tries to find meaning in a advertised product that suits him the most. In this process he normally banks on the three components: truth, fairness, taste and decency. While the first two are measurable parameters, third one cannot be measured. Hence overt government intervention in the same is a little too much if not totally unjustified (Azcuenaga, 1997). Consumers make informed decision based on how "appropriate they are to their own needs". The phrase itself is an important point that needs introspection. In a free market it is the consumer's choice that determines purchasing decisions and not government's consent. It can be said that while decisions are those of consumers, which are largely dictated by their own levels of taste or decency, why government should try to trespass. However, one point that must not be undermined is that Synder says the third component of taste and decency should not be subjected to regulations. That is a correct observation. Why should decency be subjected to regulations? If the third component of advertising was indecency, of course it should have been subjected to the same, but why decency. On the other hand, government’s reason for subjecting the same to regulations could be stemming from its concern lest it becomes indecent. Consumer needs are linked to their tastes, levels of decency and even income. Advertisements have to tap those attributes in order to hit the proverbial hammer at the right spot; the spot that triggers inclination to make affirmative purchasing decisions. To understand this phenomenon one has to understand how advertisements are made, what goes behind making them and how much of psychology is involved. The taste and levels of decency that advertisements portray are in fact the ones they have surveyed among public. These tastes are repackaged by advertisements and sold to the consumers in the form of products and services. There is nothing wrong in the same. And it is actually difficult to determine what taste is the right taste, and correct degree of decency. As mentioned above taste is a subjective term and does not portray deception in an advertisement. Instead, in United States of America, it is group into what is known as "puffery". In a country like the United States, regulation of advertising triggers a clash of rights. In this nation freedom of speech is a fundamental right. Freedom of advertising falls under the purview of this freedom of speech, but ironically, advertising industry is subjected to more regulations than any other industry in the country. This is a total contradiction, which Snyder opposes (ADC, nd). Offensiveness concern The government's compulsion to regulate the third component of advertising can be seen in the wake of offensiveness in some advertisements. Advertising are supposed to touch externalities when the content they dole out negatively hits human sensibilities. In the past there have been a number of instances when certain advertisements have found to be offensive by the society or by a specific group of people. Not long ago was this Calvin Klein advertisement in the thick of controversy which parents thought was pornographic in nature. Parents perceived that advertisement as one promoting amorous feeling while linked such with selling clothes that there is sudden drift in consumers' minds. While that was true, the advertisement was tapping the fragile childhood mind wrongly. Abercrombie & Fitch, the apparel and lifestyle brand, is still fresh on people’s minds, for showing semi-nude and nude models in its catalogues published quarterly. Where people do not want their children exposed to such advertising, government finds it fit to enforce regulations, irrespective of which one of the three components is hit more or less than the other (Patty, 2002). While regulating advertisements, government probably does not give as much attention to each component, as Snyder might be calculating it (AEF.com, nd). It is correct that people do not want advertisements served to them which are shake the cultural fabric of any society. Each society has in-built attributes that demarcate taste from distaste and decency from indecency. But both, again, are subjective. What must be bad taste for someone may be perfectly good for another person. More importantly taste is liable to change as well, so when regulations are made on the taste components of advertising they do not consider this change or individual liking. Similarly something that appears offensive today may be deemed as perfectly fine tomorrow. Seeing this in the historical context, when the first deodorant advertisement appeared in 1927 in what was then a popular print publication called Ladies Home Journal, there was outrage. Today deodorant advertisements form almost the chunk of all advertisements made and propagated. Today, such advertisements are unquestionable. Society has accepted them as a perfectly fine way of getting informed about the countless range of deodorants available in the market. Not only that, taste even has a geographical connotation too. Several years ago there was this advertisement made in North America, and it was dubbed as offensive. But it was the same advertisement which featured as the best one in International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France, and surprisingly it won the Grand Prix. Australia lapped this advertisement and gave it thumping media coverage. The advertisement in question was one that featured human skeleton in a dead shark split open. In the cut-open belly of the shark were visible surfer shorts, in perfect order. The advertisement intended to sell the shorts. In Australia the advertisement was well-received because recently two people had been killed by sharks there. It was taken in a different light, hence accepted. It was seen as communicating the dangers sharks pose to human beings. It is more a question of where people and advertisers draw a line and not where the government does. Today this industry is a booming one, taking in its stride fashion, grooming and personal hygiene products normally with some level of nudity thrown in. How nudity is taken by people is again subjective and reaction to it varies from one country to another or one region to another. If slight nudity is a product's relevance, people would not notice it - it won't be termed as indecent. For example, a deodorant advertisement cannot be expected to show w woman concealing her armpits and using a deodorant: the deodorant has to be displayed in relation to armpit. But yes, unless the advertisement goes Abercrombie & Fitch way and does not target kids badly, everything will be seemingly okay. Implementing regulations But despite that different governments resort to different ways to regulate the advertising industry. The regulations – the way they are made and implemented – differ from country to country. In America, for instance, the checks and balances are conducted at a political tripartite level. The country is replete with laws that tell advertisers what they must or must not do. While the legislatures pass the laws, executive branch enforce the same, and judiciary interprets it. The same system is followed at the state and local levels. Various federal commissions, cabinet departments and the president are responsible for the execution of these laws which are passed by Congress on the national level. The regulations are administered by state departments, attorney general, and the governor on the state level. On the local level, city attorneys, city managers, mayors and police chiefs are responsible for the enforcement of these laws. Municipal courts interpret the local laws and supreme courts and superior courts interpret state laws. Advertisers have to grapple with all of these agencies almost on a daily basis. But, at the same time, United States, just like United Kingdom and Australia have a self-regulatory mechanism in place among advertisers that develops ethics code of conduct about what should or should not be shown to public. This self-regulatory mechanism is industry-designed. One can wonder that once such a mechanism is in place what is the need for government to intervene this much. It is because government is concerned that this mechanism works in a biased manner. Phillips (1993) has quoted a Morgan poll that showed that Australian public rated advertising in the country at 9 percent on ethics; where as the best rating would be 100 percent. Brinkmann (2002) recently remarked that “there is almost a suspicion that marketers' references to values and ideals are a marketing trick, an oxymoron”. On the face of it, however, the self-regulatory mechanism’s code of ethics has suggested strictures that the government would otherwise deem fit to enforce. These strictures are on the portrayal of people in such a way that it vilifies either an individual or a section of the society on the basis of ethnicity, race, nationality, age, sex, religion, sexual preferences, political belief or disability. That itself means upholding the decency or even taste prevalent in a social setting. The code of ethics has also references to nudity and do not allow portrayal of nudity sexuality in such a manner that it finds relevance to some specific sections of the society. References have also been made to advertisements pertaining to or not pertaining to children but having impact on the fragility of their childhood. The code of ethics clearly mentions that nothing should be communicated in advertisements that cause distress to children. On obscenity there are strictures on the language i.e., such language should not be used which creates an impression of obscenity (Jones, 2005). So the point is if advertising industry has a self-regulation system which complements government legislation and regulations, should there be a need for the government to act as tough as it does. The answer could be 'not so much'. But, certainly, it should take a lively interest in sensitive advertiser categories. At the same time the government needs to be conscious of the concerted efforts advertising industry is making to adhere to its code of ethics and it, in turn, should embrace these efforts in letter and spirit (CommunicationsCouncil.org.au, nd). Ethics of taste and decency Frost (2006) has remarked that in ethics of taste and decency the most concerning issue involves images. Pictures, whether for broadcast or print, are potent enough to create upset viewers or readers than in the case for text normally. Decency is trampled over when there is abundance of obscenity, sedition, blasphemy, violence, bad language, bigotry, sex, video or pictorial images that are explicit and nudity. For the sake of an impact the advertisers cannot introduce into someone's personal space, ethnicity, culture or intrinsic social fabric. It is also important to recognise the thin line that divides the good from the bad. It is not always mandatory that a good picture or a video can lack being offensive. Pictures have a value of permanence than text and can register for long a longer period in the mind of a viewer (Smith, 2012). The government regulation, although hackneyed, on this abstract component of taste and decency has become part of a heated debate in the recent years. This is because many regulations are being amended and laws put into force that set demarcation lines for what is permissible and what is not permissible in advertising (Moore, 2006). The lobby which argues that such laws tend to appear archaic state that rules cannot be expected to control issues pertaining to taste and decency. Marketers normally go by the tenets of ethics in as far as their decisions are concerned (George, nd). Laws, for them, come only secondary for considerations. There are certain actions that may seem "tasty and decent" but still unethical, and yet there are certain actions that may seem "distasteful and indecent" but can still deemed as ethical. So the question is which line of thought does the government tow when it makes rules and regulations? This explains one reason why, for example in Europe, issues pertaining to taste and decency is dealt with by the self-regulatory systems of the advertising industry there (Harker, 2003). It has an advantage too. Advertising industry is a fast-paced industry and issues need to be sorted out flexibly and quickly. The government regulatory system is tardy and often takes time; so much time that by the time issues are resolved, much of the intended work has already turned redundant for use. Another factor that has been observed is that most of the issues pertaining to taste and decency about which government seems to be overwhelmingly concerned have been seen as receiving only little attention from the consumers, who are the end users and by their very nature who should be more concerned about such issues than the government. European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA) has observed that adjudication of matters pertaining to taste and decency, so what is needed is to strike the right balance (EASA, 2008). The balance can be struck keeping in view the consumer sensibilities and advertiser's freedom of speech. Advertisers always have an access to the self-regulatory authority and can take up an issue with the same whenever there is a dilemma. Most important thing is to be aware of the discretion that is to be exerted pertaining to taste and decency. EASA adds that since 1988 hardly any complaints have been received them specifying consumer objection to either taste or decency. It states there should not be any problem in an advertisement if it conforms to law, truth and is in good taste and decent. References Azcuenaga, M.L. (1997). The role of advertising regulation in the free market. Federal Trade Commission. Available http://www.ftc.gov/speeches/azcuenaga/turkey97.shtm. Accessed September 27, 2013. Adc. (nd). General provisions on regulation of advertisement activities in the US. Available http://adconsul.org/en/articles/6. Accessed September 27, 2013. AEF.com. (nd). Chapter 3: The Economic, Social, and Regulatory Aspects of Advertising. Available http://www.aef.com/pdf/arens_ch03.pdf. Accessed September 27, 2013. Brinkmann, J. (2002). Business and marketing ethics as professional ethics. Concepts, approaches and typologies. Journal of Business Ethics 41(1/2): 159-177. CommunicationsCouncil.org.au., (nd). Advertising Codes and Regulations. Available http://www.communicationscouncil.org.au/public/content/ViewCategory.aspx?id=61. Accessed September 27, 2013. EASA. (2008). Report on advertising self regulation across Europe. Available http://www.asa.org.uk/Resource-Centre/~/media/Files/ASA/Reports/2008EASAReportportrayalofgender1.ashx. Accessed September 27, 2013. George, T. (nd). Ethics and Regulations in Advertising. Available http://www.scribd.com/doc/47894663/Module-2-Ethics-and-Regulations-in-Advertising. Accessed September 27, 2013. Harker, D. (2003). The importance of industry compliance in improving advertising self-regulatory processes. Journal of Public Affairs 3(1): 63-75. Jones, S.C. (2005). Australian industry responses to current ethical dilemmas – fast cars and fast food. Available http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1135&context=hbspapers. Accessed September 27, 2013. Moore, C. (2007). "Ethics in Advertising," Advertising Educational Foundation. Available http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/speaker_pres/data/6000. Accessed September 27, 2013. Phillips, M. 1993. Tough times in adland. Australian Business Monthly 13(4): 78-82. Patty, A. (2002). Children fed an unhealthy diet of ads. The Daily Telegraph July 22: 11. Smith, A.G. (2012). The ethics of taste and decency. Available http://www.slideshare.net/SabinaV/the-ethics-of-taste-and-decency. Accessed September 27, 2013. Read More