Responsible Advertising: Who Determines What is Right?

For better or worse, the rules of advertising are changing. I’m not talking about new techniques or creative concepts here, or even the Big Idea. Nor am I referring to the latest technologies surrounding product integration, search marketing, interactive platforms, or anything as intriguing as that.

The growing challenge for advertisers is not how to reach consumers where they are—marketers know how to do that very well—but how socially responsible the message is once it reaches those consumers. The new rules of advertising have more to do with responsibility than with Return On Investment. It is not the medium, it is the message.

We are witnessing the dawning of a new era of “responsible advertising” that seeks to protect consumers from advertising that someone, somewhere, deems socially and politically incorrect. Even if we stipulate there are categories of advertising that can—and should be—disallowed, responsible advertising goes well beyond traditional notions of content regulation. For example, should values become an indispensable part of the advertising mix?

Bolstered by political rhetoric and a conservative mood in Washington, the would-be arbiters of responsible advertising claim a public mantle, if not a public interest. Most would like to see advertising go entirely away, but would surely settle for heavier regulation at the end of the day. And they seem to be getting nearer to that goal every year. Because it is impolitic for big corporations to wage extended war with do-good public interest groups, companies prudently have disengaged from that battle and taken initiative on another front.

More and more advertisers are choosing to aggressively self-regulate the marketing of products or categories that some critics have found to be objectionable. Since most large companies have a working familiarity with the mandates of social responsibility in other areas, applying those principles to marketing and advertising has not been difficult.

Last summer, prescription drug makers established a new code of marketing practices and set up an Office of Accountability to review direct-to-consumer drug commercials. More recently, a leading food company decided not to advertise some of its products on children’s television programs that reach audiences under age 12. Many other industries have instituted marketing codes and established independent review panels. And the advertising industry has strengthened its unique self-regulatory regime through the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU).

All of these actions suggest the emphasis on responsibility is well-placed.
What troubles me, though, is who gets to define responsible advertising.

Advertisers have a vested commercial interest in portraying their products in the best light possible. They are, after all, ultimately accountable to both their customers and shareholders in a competitive marketplace, and should be able to decide for themselves. It would be a mistake to abdicate this role to outside interest groups who want to do away with advertising altogether, or who would promote a system that only permits the marketing of products they alone deem to be good, healthful, nutritious, wholesome or necessary.

© 2006

Adonis Hoffman is a lawyer and strategic marketing and communications expert in Washington, DC. He is the founder and chairman of the Center on Responsible Media & Marketing in Washington.