Ethics are all very well but is it feasible?

By IRENE CHAPPLE

Nice idea, clever brand platform, but is the advertising any good?

That's the response from members of Auckland's advertising scene to new London advertising agency Eighty Twenty.

All seem to applaud the concept, but say it couldn't be done here because margins are too tight. There is too little dosh about in this market for an agency to make a decent living and give a fifth of its profits to charity, they say.

Most make the point that agencies here already donate creative effort to charitable causes - although not a fifth of their work.

And, they ask, what's the point if the advertising doesn't work? Even pro-bono clients need the advertising to get a response.

In New Zealand, advertising the big baddie - tobacco - has long been banned and alcohol has severe restrictions. But what of products that harm the environment, or advertising that pushes unsuitable products to children?

That's where it gets tricky, says Colenso BBDO's Mike O'Sullivan. "You really have to take each client as they come, and look at the whole picture." But, he adds, he wouldn't participate in a campaign that, say, supported war against Iraq.

Genetic engineering is another tricky topic. O'Sullivan is cautious. "I think a whole lot more needs to be known about that subject," he says. But would he campaign for it? "We'd look at it, possibly."

Whybin TBWA's Dave Walden says he would never expect any of his staff to work on accounts to which they were ethically opposed.

"But I don't think the advertising industry should be charged with being a gatekeeper [for the public]."

Saatchi & Saatchi's Andrew Tinning reckons running a successful campaign for a charity - such as last year's Women's Refuge advertising - can be more useful than donating money.

"It will raise far more money than you could give as a business," he says.

David Bell, a former London-based creative and now teacher at AXIS adschool, is intrigued by the concept. He believes the brand of an ethical agency will ride on the current groundswell of action against, among other things, war and globalisation.

"But it will all depend on the quality of work produced and the results achieved. No amount of good intentions will count for anything if the ads don't work."