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Advertising and Self-Regulation
• Advertising Standard Authority (ASA)
which produced British Code of
Advertising Practice (BCPA) in 1960.
• Independent Broadcasting Authority
(IBA) Code of Advertising Standards
and Practice (1981).
• Independent Television Commission
(ITC) (1991).
Advertising and Self-Regulation
• Voluntary codes without legal status,
with the exception of ITC code, which is
enforceable by law.
• ASA slogan: Are you legal, decent,
honest, truthful? Advertisers have to
be.
• Advertisers no longer can say
‘Business is Business’.
Advertising and Self-Regulation
• Advertising copy must be
distinguished from editorial material.
• Advertisers must not mislead the
public about their identity.
• Advertised products must be available
and not advertise as a mean of testing
potential demand.
Women and Advertising
• Nature of Issue Ideological rather than
Misleading.
• Feminist Complaints about the role of
Women:
– Nudity and Semi-nudity.
– Stereotype portrayal of women.
(Housewife)
– ‘Attitudes or opinions about which society
is divided’.
• Goffman’s ‘ Gender Advertisements’.
• Women are often depicted as less
intelligent, less independent and more
frivolous than men.
• Issue of Sexual Equality: ‘Advertiser is
to sell, not to reform society’( not to
protect feminist ideology).
Women and Advertising
• Impact of women advertising on
Business is damaging.
• Sex Discrimination Acts (1975 & 1986).
• ASA recommendation ‘particular care
should be taken to avoid causing
offence on the grounds of race,
religion, sex, sexual orientation or
disability’.
• Strategy to monitor the eye-movements of
experimental subjects while reading a
news paper to determine the type of copy
on which the human eye is more likely to
rest.
Advertisers’ Deception
• Thus, an advertiser cannot be held
responsible for an audience having
misinterpreted a message when the
misinterpretation is unintended,
unforeseen, or the result of
carelessness on the part of the
audience.
Advertisers’ Deception
• The media carrying the message also
has a responsibility to ensure the truth
of what it carries to the audience. Both
the author and the media must take
into account the interpretive skills of
the audience as well.
Advertisers’ Deception
•
To determine the ethical nature of an
advertisement, the following points
are relevant:
1. The intended and actual social effects of
the advertisement.