Ad Rules and Changing Behavior

Michael Hedges June 15, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Governments regularly invite controversy when advertising is the subject. In the most honorable sense, civil society stakeholders have a right to demand civil responsibility from those creating commercial speech. On the other side, it’s about changing people’s behavior or, simply, rewarding the powerful few.

“The marketing imagination knows no boundaries,” wrote a reporter for Corrierre Della Sera (May 27), reasoning that rules on advertising lag the commercial spirit. Broadcasters and publishers are adding pressure for governments to lighten up on ad rules lest dismal economics cause more pain. Sometimes it works; mostly not.

The Swiss Federal Council voted at the end of May to allow certain alcohol ads on Swiss TV, thinking it would be good for Swiss producers, both alcoholic and television. Alas, the Swiss Senate overruled that thinking. The Swiss government is between a rock and a hard place as participation in the European Commission’s Media program that funds European cinema production requires Switzerland adopt provisions found in the Television Without Frontiers Directive. Those would include a ban on ads for alcoholic beverages.

Switzerland has a long border with Germany, southern Germany, beer country. There are no bans on broadcast advertising for beer in Bavaria. As a consequence, beer ads do, indeed, appear on television channels in Switzerland. The Swiss Federal Council members proposing reversing the Swiss ban were practicing the old political stand-by: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

And, too, there would be a bigger benefit. Swiss public television SSR-SRG is the dominant television provider by a leap. Shrinking ad spending is taking its toll on weighty objects such as buying broadcast sports rights. The Swiss license fee is already the highest in Europe with no political will to raise it. A little boost from advertising could ease some pressure.

Several French Senators attempted to ban advertising for tobacco and alcohol from websites and the internet (June 5). It failed, generally, but the compromise would prevent tobacco and alcohol products from being advertised on websites targeting young people. The internet is, without question, the next target of opportunity for advertising restrictions. The French governments’ attempt to redirect ad spending from public television to private sector television, friends of President Sarkozy, largely failed to stem the tide of discretionary ad spending from old media to new media.

All advertising targeting children, regardless of medium, has attracted the constant attention of health and education officials and has been popular fodder for legal restrictions. The food and beverage industries, not limited to alcoholic beverages, have stayed one step ahead of legal restrictions by adopting firm self-regulation codes. Nobody in those industries wants to see strict bans similar to those in Sweden.

“Lawmakers monitor the actions of their colleagues to see what approach is adopted,” said World Federation of Advertisers Executive Director Stefan Loerke. As do big advertisers. In 2007 Coca-Cola dropped all advertising directed at under 12 year olds in Europe. In France fast-food and beverage companies must add a healthy message to all ads or pay a tax.

Political advertising, during those weeks before elections, raises temperatures. In the Portuguese city of Porto the city council (June 10) banned outdoor advertising “in much of the city,” bringing howls of protest from political opponents. It’s probably illegal, say media watchers, as it violates provisions on free speech in the Portuguese Constitution.

Norway has specific law banning political ads from television, similar to other country’s restrictions. The European Court of Human Rights overturned the Norwegian ban. “With the clear verdict of the court in Strasbourg, we have no qualms about broadcasting political advertising,” said TV Telemark editor Nils Otto Sem to Telemarksavisa.no (March 16). The Swiss government, too, is entertaining the idea of allowing a very tame form of political advertising on television.

Gambling, the vice of kings, seems to be the next target. The messages, though, have been unclear. Finland’s government wants to ban gaming and betting from advertising and sponsorships broadly.

The European Commission began investigating in 2006 complaints from Slovak gambling operators over ad restrictions in Austria. Only Casinos Austria, a monopoly, was allowed to advertise gambling in Austria. Two years later Austria modified its law to allow Slovak casinos to “seek authorization to advertise” after passing an investigation by Austrian authorities.

After the adoption of the Audiovisual Services Directive, most countries scurried about bringing national law on advertising into compliance. Often these changes take arcane language to the extreme. Recently, Austria’s public broadcaster ORF got into hot water for broadcasting a station promotion announcement outside the spot break delineated by the traditional European “advertising divider.” 

“An element that is added by the broadcaster as a divider between program content and advertising becomes ambiguous if it is also broadcast in the same or a similar form between individual advertising spots,” said the Federal Communication Senate (BKS Bundeskommunikationssenat) “If this is the case, the viewer is more or less obliged to check after every item whether it means the advertising block has finished or whether the advertising is continuing.”

Obviously, this assumes viewers jump up when ad breaks appear and won’t return from the fridge until the appropriate signal is given. Would that it be that simple.

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