Offensive Advertising

In our last Update (Nov-Dec 2002) we mentioned the offensive Levis ads featuring embracing lesbians, and encouraged you to write to Levis and to the Advertising Standards Board (ASB). Levis wrote back a standard form letter to all complainants, basically dismissing the legitimate concerns expressed.

The ASB has been equally unhelpful concerning the ad. Altogether more than 160 people complained to the ASB about the ad. Yet those who did complain received a reply from the ASB saying "the board came to the view the depiction was not offensive". This tells us more about the board than the ad. It simply tells us how out of touch and unrepresentative the board members are. And it tells us that self-regulation is a joke. One might as well trust the drug cartels to self-regulate, or the porn industry, or big tobacco. It is clear that self-regulation simply does not work in this area.

This inaction on the part of the ASB is not an isolated incident. The ASB has been flooded with complaints, but the overwhelming majority of complaints have been ignored by the ASB. During last year, almost 1100 complaints were lodged to the ASB concerning around 300 different ads - ads on radio, TV, billboards and in print. Of these, only 24 were upheld, while 1063 were dismissed. That is quite incredible. Nearly 98 per cent of people's complaints were just dismissed out of hand, while just over 2 per cent were upheld.

By these figures alone, it is clear that the ASB needs to be put out of its misery. It serves no useful purpose whatsoever. In fact, it is merely a self-serving body, offering no help to the community it claims to represent. It represents no one but the advertisers, and their bottom line is profit. They do not care about community sensibilities and family values. They exist for only one purpose: to make money.

ACTION

There used to be a proper complaints mechanism, the Australian Advertising Council, which was not an advertising group. Ask your local MP if such an independent monitoring body can once again be established to protect the community. The ASB obviously will not. Contact your local Federal MP care of Parliament House, Canberra, ACT 2600.

Family Update, January-February 2003, p. 5