Charity
advertising has not, it would seem, lost its edge. Unusually,
last year the sector failed to secure a single entry in the
10 adverts attracting the most complaints to the Advertising
Standards Authority (ASA), prompting some to speculate that
charities were tiring of controversy. Save the Children’s
“brown eyes” mail out has probably put paid to
that.
While the mailout is, in fact, nowhere near making the top
of the complaints board this year (it attracted just six),
the ban by the ASA has been enough to raise old questions
about charities’ tendency to shock with their advertisements,
and about why even the biggest still sometimes overstep the
mark.
The reason charities sometimes resort to shocking images or
concepts is fairly obvious. As Steve Kershaw, group director
at Barnardo’s’ advertising agency, Bartle Bogle
Hegarty (BBH), explains, the tactic helps increase the impact
of charities’ relatively small advertising budget in
a cluttered media environment.
“It’s a simple truth that when you don’t
have a lot of money, you can’t buy your way into people’s
consciousness,” he says. Shocking images and the consequent
press coverage can augment the impact of relatively modest
campaigns. Barnardo’s best-known adverts, “heroin
baby” in the year 2000 (featuring an infant in the process
of injecting itself) and the baby with a cockroach in its
mouth (the most complained about advert of 2003), are good
examples. “The charity spent well under £1 million
a year on advertising, but if you looked at the profile of
the charity and the issues it raised there were huge spikes
in awareness around the adverts,” Kershaw continues.
For Barnardo’s, particularly, the controversy was doubly
welcome, not just for bringing the adverts to a wider audience,
but also helping to modernise the charity’s image. Of
course, this gives rise to the suspicion that in courting
controversy, charities are not actually averse to the odd
reprimand from the regulators. The chief executive of The
Prostrate Cancer Charity, John Neate, for instance, has said
that the decision of the Radio Advertising Clearance Centre
(RACC) last year to censor its “squish” advert
served only to boost media interest in the campaign.
With the ASA, there’s arguably even less reason to worry
about a reprimand. After all, adjudications from the body
tend to come only after an ad has run its course.
“An ASA ruling isn’t going to make a difference
on the effectiveness of a campaign,” confirms David
Barker, head of communications at the British Heart Foundation.
“If you believe a piece of communication is right on
the money and doing the job it’s intended to, whether
the ASA think your contravening a rule or not isn’t
going to change that.”
Nevertheless, Barker, whose own charity saw its “plastic
bag” advert banned by the ASA in 2002, is adamant that
a negative ruling from the ASA is taken seriously. “It’s
not to be sniffed at,” he says. “We do a lot of
hard-hitting advertising and we tread close to the line, but
we never want to overstep it.”
The reason charities do overstep it is that the line is by
no means clear. Under the principles of the Committee of Advertising
Practice (CAP) code, all adverts should be legal, decent,
honest and truthful (the difference between the latter two
is explained in the code). In the event of a complaint, it
is up to the ASA to make the judgment call as to whether an
advert measures up.
On the issue of decency, which stipulates that marketing material
should avoid causing serious or widespread offence, charities
are given some “leeway” by the ASA, though not,
as a spokesperson for the regulator explains, “carte
blanche to offend”.
But this is probably just as well given that the code goes
on to suggest that particular care needs to be taken around
the issues of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and
disability, which must cover the work of a good proportion
of the sector (environmental and animal campaigning groups,
meanwhile, have their own problems – see below, political
animals).
Religion is particularly controversial: one advert that will
certainly make the leaderboard for complaints this year is
the Gay Police Association’s. The headline “In
the name of the father” ran with a photo of a Bible
next to a pool of blood, highlighting what the association
claimed was a rise in religiously-motivated incidents of homophobia.
In just one day in The Independent the advert racked
up 553 complaints – the most for an advert so far this
year.
As Diana Green, director of communications at Barnardo’s,
explains, charities’ work tends to excite strong emotions.
“When you are considering the issues charities deal
with they tend to divide people; you get a polarization of
views,” she says. This can mean even experienced advertisers
find themselves wrong-footed by the public’s reaction
– as happened with the baby and cockroach advert. “We
were surprised by the level of complaints, because we’d
done controversial advertising before, and I guess we thought
we had got the balance right,” she says.
The system is also complaints-driven. For print advertising
at least, there is no pre-screening, and the ASA only gets
involved once the public complains. This makes it difficult
to predict how an advert could trip up. It’s worth mentioning,
for instance, that only about a quarter of the complaints
to the ASA are on grounds of decency.
The BHF advert, for instance, was banned on the grounds of
safety because it was feared children might copy it (the plastic
bag was over a woman’s head). This was despite the charity
running the ad past the CAP’s copy advice team, which
gives guidance on whether ads are likely to fall foul of its
code, prior to publication.
Save the Children’s mail, meanwhile, was only banned
because it might have distressed children; it was thought
they might misunderstand its statement that those with brown
eyes are more likely to die young (a reference to the fact
that most children born in the world’s poorest countries
have brown eyes).
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The one to watch
It is against this background of uncertainty that the Fundraising
Standards Board (FSB) will begin to operate in the New Year.
Last month, the board released its Fundraising Promise,
which those signing up to the regulatory scheme will pledge
to adhere to. The document dropped a previous proposal to
ban members from using “excessive emotional arguments”
in marketing material, but instead includes commitment to
avoid causing “unjustifiable” offence or distress,
using undue pressure, and to respect the dignity of beneficiaries
and supporters. Signatories will also commit to telling
the truth and avoiding exaggeration.
As yet, it is unclear how the scheme will fit in with the
existing regime; the FSB says it is due to begin discussions
with the FSA shortly about how best to work together. Presently
the FSB’s chief executive Jon Scourse says he’s
keen to avoid duplication, and at least part of the arrangement
is likely to see the FSB refer complaints falling within
its remit to the FSA.
However, Scourse is also clear that his body will have a
role to play in setting standards.
“One of the whole raison d’etres of the FSB
is to make such judgements,” he says, and talks of
the FSB building up a body of case law on where the limits
of acceptability lie. “We’re being set up to
draw those lines, which will then make it easier for charities
subsequently to know where they are.”
It will be sometime before it’s clear whether this
aim is achievable, but the sector should probably wish the
new body luck. If the last few years are anything to go
by, it will have its work cut out for it.
Top complaint entries in recent years:
2002: British Heart Foundation’s
“plastic bag” press ads caused concern for children’s
safety, attracting 315 complaints – the most that
year. The complaints were upheld.
Unison failed to substantiate the implication in its advert
that care home places had been lost due to the greed of
private sector operators. Complaints by 140 people and businesses
were upheld.
2003: Barnardo’s’
“silver spoons” press campaign in depicting
babies with cockroaches or syringes in their mouths attracted
475 complaints. Complaints that the ads were offensive were
upheld.
A BBC Red Nose Day mock-up based on the film American
Beauty featuring a naked Sophie Dahl with strategically-placed
red noses attracted 69 complaints for being sexually provocative,
but was considered justified. Not upheld.
A press campaign by Jews for Jesus came under fire
for stereotyping Orthodox Jews and attracted 44 complaints.
The ASA disagreed. Not upheld.
2004: British Heart Foundation’s
“fatty cigarette” TV adverts in which fat spilled
out of cigarettes, signifying the damage smoking does to
arteries attracted 92 complaints, but Ofcom (which regulated
television advertising at the time) decided the importance
of the message outweighed the objections. Not upheld.
2005: KFC’s call centre
ad featuring three employees singing the praises of the
fast food outlet’s Zinger Crunch salad with their
mouths’ full provoked 1,671 complaints, making it
the most complained about advert ever. Not upheld, unfortunately.
Political animals
The effects of the ban on political advertising have been
controversial since last year, when it was invoked by Ofcom
to banish Make Poverty History (MPH) ads from the airwaves.
While the ASA now also regulates TV and radio ads, Ofcom
is still responsible for enforcing the Communications Act
2003, which introduced the ban. At the time, it said that
it could not escape the conclusion that MPH was a political
body under the Act – adding that it had no scope for
differentiating between “good” and “bad”
politics.
In fact, the Act defines a political group even wider than
the test under charity law (of a body with the main aim
of changing the law) to include even those bodies seeking
to influence public opinion on a matter “of public
controversy”.
Not only that, but as Tamsin Allen, a partner at solicitors
Bindman and Partners explains, the Act bans all adverts
by such groups, not just ones with a political message.
“A body that seeks to influence public opinion on
a matter of controversy can’t even sell a t-shirt
– or a nut roast,” she says.
High Court
Allen represents anti-vivisection group Animal Defenders
International, which has challenged the ban in the High
Court, arguing that it contravenes the European Convention
on Human Rights.
At time of press, the High Court had refused ADI’s
challenge, however, it did clear the way for ADI to appeal
directly to the House of Lords and leapfrog the Court of
Appeal. Tim Phillips, ADI’s campaigns director said:
“We believe the Court’s decision today to allow
us to go straight to the House of Lords is testament to
the strength of our case.”
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