Hilary Souter: Common sense key to good advertising judgment

The debate in the pages of the Herald over advertising reflects the wider debate in the community over standards of behaviour, manners and the words we use and when we use them.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer.

I know the difficulty of applying mainstream community standards to advertising from my experience as an occasional industry member of the Advertising Standards Complaints Board over five years, adviser to newspapers for nine years and now executive director of the Advertising Standards Authority.

In a recent opinion piece, Amanda Cropp (see link to article below) highlighted challenges for parents around advertising aimed at adults, on the grounds that children also see and either repeat it or want more information on it.

The good news is that we have a simple, free process for addressing the concerns of people like Amanda, if they choose to use it.

Anyone can complain about advertising wherever they see or hear it, even on the internet (if it is a New Zealand site) for nothing by writing to us or emailing us.

The entire process is funded by advertisers, advertising agencies and the media. And we know it works because each year the Advertising Standards Complaints Board (ASCB) receives hundreds of complaints about advertising. In 2004 more than 770 complaints were received.

The ASCB has jurisdiction over all advertising in all media. The board has eight members - four from the public and four from industry. The chairman must be one of the public members, and has a casting vote.

People complain for all sorts of reasons including whether advertising aimed at adults is inappropriate when seen or heard by children.

I admit this is a difficult area because we need to balance the interests of the consumer, the family and the advertiser when considering a complaint.

Commonsense is the over-riding principle applied by the board in making decisions, but it is also assisted by a number of codes which set out principles and guidelines to advertisers and the media.

One such difficult decision was required over the latest Toyota Hilux vehicle television commercial which has an animated sequence of two bulls on a farm causing mayhem.

During the sequence one of the bulls calls a ram, "sheep-shagger".

The board received 20 complaints objecting to the use of this phrase. The complaints were not upheld.

Now 20 complaints is a considerable number, but set against the number of people who had seen the commercial on television, the board decided that the use of the phrase was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence, taking into account generally prevailing community standards.

It is the board's aim to reflect those standards and like many standards they evolve over time.

Another advertisement using the sheep-shagger reference in relation to the Queensland Reds rugby team was upheld in 1996. The board said then that it did not believe society would find it acceptable to use that phrase to describe a group of people in an advertisement to promote a rugby game.

The two different decisions on the use of this term do not necessarily mean standards have liberalised since 1996, as the board takes great care to understand the context of an advertisement as well as the way the advertiser tells their story. It is these elements which can make a huge difference to the style and nature of an advertisement.

The board gets a lot of practice, and in 2004 considered complaints about 257 different advertisements. It upheld or settled 124 - or 48 per cent - of these.

If a complaint is upheld, the advertiser, advertising agency and media are asked not to run the advertisement again. There is a very high level of compliance with this request. Advertisers are not expected to agree with the board's decisions but they are asked to respect them and offending advertisements are removed quickly.

Advertising by its very nature will provoke reaction and comment from the public. The board provides a free, efficient and effective way for consumers to have their complaints considered and responded to.

The ASA website contains details on how to complain and copies of decisions of the board since 2000.

The 13 different advertising codes of practice are also on the website or available in booklet form from the ASA office in Wellington.

* Hilary Souter is the executive director of the Advertising Standards Authority and secretary of the Advertising Standards Complaints Board.