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Public invited to have say in shakeup of advertising rules

The Australian Association of National Advertisers is to carry out a wide ranging review of its code of ethics in a move which could see significant changes to the standards applied to ads.

The AANA has released a discussion paper for its code of ethics review to encourage public debate on the issue.  

When the public makes complaints about ads to the Advertising Standards Board, the organisation refers to the code of ethics in making its judgements on whether the ad is acceptable.

Scott McClellan, CEO of AANA said: “The AANA Code of Ethics is widely regarded as the standard for ethical behaviour by advertisers and marketers and this review will ensure the Code remains world’s best practice for marketing self regulation. The discussion paper encourages dialogue on the objectives and structure of the Code as well as issues such as privacy, body image, the portrayal of people, taste and decency and the substantiation of claims in advertising.”

The review will be undertaken by Dr Terence Beed, Honorary Associate Professor in the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Sydney.

“Sustained open dialogue with interested non-industry participants is a key requirement for a good self-regulatory system because the model should evolve to meet community expectations and to take into account the new methods employed by marketers to get their messages across,” said Dr Beed.

The closing date for submissions is Friday September 10 with a revised code of ethics to be submitted before the end of the year.

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