Comms Council warns of red tape and higher costs after government report slams industry self-regulation
Self-regulation of the advertising industry – particularly but only the outdoor industry – is not working, and has been guilty of allowing the sexualisation of children and objectification of women, among other vices. So all forms of advertising should be subject to new forms of control, a government review of the national classification system has recommended.
Despite six months of government lobbying to prove that self-regulation was working, the Communications Council was today faced with a report from the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs recommending that all types of advertising fall under a new system that will mean “more red tape and higher costs”.
Advertisers and industry bodies would be able to self-assess ad content, but with this comes the introduction of ‘heavy sanctions’ for breaches of the code, the Communications Council noted.
“Self regulation would be permitted, but with a government official looking over your shoulder,” a Comms Council spokesperson said.
The senate’s report has been sent to federal government officials, who will decide whether or not to heed their recommendations with legislation. It is unclear how long the government will take to reach a verdict.
If the report’s recommendations take effect, this will mean that every piece of communications in every medium will need to be assessed either internally or externally against the classification codes – although the council said that precisely how the codes would work was vague, as was the sort of penalties that would be imposed.
The Communications Council’s CEO Daniel Leesong said: “Given the sheer volume of marketing communications, the proposed classification measures would burden large and small businesses. It will likely lead to lower productivity and increased costs despite the lack of evidence to justify a new scheme.”
Outdoor advertising took a hammering in the report, which pointed to statistics showing that complaints made about outdoor advertising have risen from 4% of all complaints in 2006, to one in four in 2010.
Groups such as Media Standards Australia, FamilyVoice Australia and the Australian Christian Lobby were quoted in the report complaing that outdoor vendors are too slow to take offending ads down, and gave examples of where they thought the Advertising Standards Bureau had failed to police inappropriate messages.
Three ads were singled out, one for Sprite.
The Advertising Standards Board considered the pose of the woman to be “so ridiculous that it was an obvious and clever use of self-referrential humour”. However, the Media Standards Australia criticised the ASB’s verdict, noting: “We see many ads with bikini-clad woman, but this one adds the words ‘sexy’ to the message, and includes the image of the neck of the bottle near her crotch. Despite the views of the Board, this renders the ad very suggestive and quite disgusting!!!”
An ad for Diesel prompted the lobby group Kids Free 2B Kids to note that they would like to see the industry become “more proactively responsible” for what children are exposed to in public.
Concerning an ad for Bardot Denim, Media Standards Australia questioned why, even if the ad was only ‘mildly’ sexually suggestive, it was allowed to remain in a public place.
Critics within the report also suggested that as a body funded by the advertising industry itself, the ASB was too self-interested to be an effective regulator.
Leesong objected: “99.98% of the outdoor ads displayed last year were in line with the various self-regulatory codes. As an industry we work hard to maintain these standards. The Senate report fails to acknowledge these figures. They are proposing a heavy handed approach to a system that is working effectively.”
Mumbrella is actually quoting Media Standards Australia?
Not to mention Family Voice Australia and Australian Christian Lobby.
Those groups make the Pope look contemporary and informed.
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Well, it’s true it’s not working. I don’t think having the Government step in is going to help at all, but self-enforcement is a joke, there are no real penalties for breaches and a slap on the wrist after your campaign is already complete is not really a solution to a breach of standards, is it?
The lobby groups are lunatics. But the industry should be ashamed anyway. It’s not working effectively, no matter what stats Leesong quotes.
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agree with Ant.
Quote from the report:
“‘Artistic merit’ remains a defence to child pornography and child abuse material offences in many states, meaning that sexualised images of naked children can be exhibited in public galleries under the guise of ‘art’.”
Controversial?
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agree, its become a joke. Dont know what the industry thought was going to happen, but its given the nutjob lobby groups more of a grip on wheel
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Typical of the isolated “Stunt Monkey’s” in Canberra, this government is so anti-business they will business bash to take pressure off their own inadequacies. “Let’s find an easy target to take focus of Boat people, pink batts failure, the so-called education revolution, the Carbon Tax stunt, Rudd and his machinations etc.” Advertising is an easy whipping boy, because the industry has the whimpiest reputation in industry for rolling over, an easy target for a government in trouble. This industry is not capable of running itself because you can’t get the clients and the agencies on the same side of the fence.
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Wayne – I think you should read the report. The Government Senators dissented from the main report, which was led by Liberals Senator Guy Barnett.
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governments have constantly tried to enforce regulation on the outdoor industry but it’s never worked. Why do Australia want to be the only 1st world country to enforce these regulations. No other country does. The most imporntant point is that the government is going to this expense and time because of a TINY amount of complaints. Why don’t they concentrate on something that needs concentrating on. More red tape is not what we need!
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I think everyone should read the report. It was most illuminating – seriously.
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Wayne Wood I can’t believe that yu would begin to believe that the “Stunt Monkeys” in canberra would think that self regulation could be used to distarct the populace from the issues you list. Outdoor advertising is a matter of stunning indifference to the populace, even those suffering from galloping paranoia such as you.When you put your arse in the air you should know what’s next. Put it down lad, and get out more.
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