No quiet summer for the ASA

The process of making ads can be so full-on that it’s easy to be oblivious to real-world events, says Dominic Mills – and after some high profile disasters in recent weeks, including the Marmite TV ad and the Home Office’s ‘Go Home’ poster campaign, advertisers need to learn from their mistakes.

There you are, an investigations apparatchik at the Advertising Standards Authority anticipating a nice peaceful August, and then it all kicks off.

First, that Home Office mobile poster campaign. Then a new TV campaign for Marmite.

They’re two very different ads, yet both have sparked furious reactions above and beyond what you might expect in the so-called ‘silly season’ when the media are inclined to blow up anything into a massive controversy.

The Marmite ad provoked 250 complaints within 24 hours, which is going some even for this day and age when people take offence at the drop of a hat.

Some might say the Marmite case underlines the strength of TV as an advertising medium, although I think it says more about the organised nature of lobby group or special interest protest and the way they use social media to gather their forces.

Let’s start with the Home Office posters inviting illegal immigrants to hand themselves in or face arrest. It is certainly close to the bone but, if you analyse it by the four basic tenets of the advertising code – legal, honest, decent and truthful – it just about scrapes by. What it isn’t is nice, but then a lot of ads aren’t nice, and nor are they meant to be.

Its main crime, it seemed to me when I first read about it (like almost everyone else, of course, I haven’t actually seen the posters), is that it is brutal about a highly politicised subject at a sensitive time. As such, it was bound to inflame emotions and lead to accusations of cynicism and scaremongering.

MediaTel’s resident poster expert James Whitmore identifies the poster as symptomatic of our lack of ethics in society generally, but especially in advertising.

Curiously though, for all the heat the posters have generated, the number of complaints – 60 – is a fraction of those for the Marmite ad. The ASA does not make judgements on the basis of the volume of complaints – and quite rightly too – but those figures are in themselves an interesting reflection of society.

My own view is that the most contentious part of the poster is the starburst claiming ‘106 arrests in your area last week’. At the very least it is unspecific (what area? Which week? What happened to the people who were arrested? Were they illegal immigrants?), and therefore open to challenge. At the worst, it is scaremongering and may incite anti-social or racist behaviour. It is on that the Home Office may find itself in hot water with the ASA.

Incidentally, there’s one other curious thing about the poster campaign: it’s in English, which makes you wonder how many of the target market would understand it. That, of course, depends on how you define the target market, which some might say was not really the illegal immigrant population, but the rest of us and was therefore designed to show that the government was doing more than talking tough on the issue.

The Marmite ad is somewhat different, a cod documentary about a Marmite rescue team investigating cases of neglect (i.e. jars left at the back of your larder cupboard). It mimics RSPCA inspectors, down to the little cages they take the Marmite jars away in, responding to allegations of neglect and cruelty. And the faux-solemnity of the commentary, by former BBC newsreader Michael Buerk, perfectly catches the mood.

Personally, I think it is very funny and a brilliant way of driving more Marmite consumption. But there are few lobbies more ferocious than animal protectionists.

Unfortunately for those clever folks at Marmite and its agency adam&eveDDB, its release coincided with the conviction of Magdalena Luczak for starving and beating to death her four-year-old son Daniel in yet another horrendous case of child neglect and abuse.

Given that background, it’s hardly surprising that consumers were quick to draw parallels.

I feel sorry for the Marmite team, but to release the ad at that time was grossly insensitive. You might wonder how that might be, but the process of making ads can be so full-on that it’s easy to be oblivious to real-world events.

What do I think the ASA will say? I’m going for a light reprimand for the Home Office – pointless, of course, because the damage (if that’s your stance) will have been done – and a clean bill of health for Marmite, although there’s a simple lesson to be learned by all advertisers from the latter: pay attention to what’s happening in the real world.

I’m suffering from ‘bottom-right syndrome’ and it’s getting worse

You’re probably wondering what ‘bottom-right (always hyphenate to avoid misunderstanding) syndrome’ is.

Put simply, it’s the compulsion to look to the bottom right of any newspaper or magazine piece featuring a celeb/sports star/well-known person. It’s usually signalled by a few italicised words at the end of the piece. That’s where you’ll find what it is they’re promoting and hence why they’re in the publication.

And increasingly these days it’s where I start. If I find that I’m not remotely interested in what they’re promoting – say, for example, the release of some crap film on DVD, Rick Astley (to take an example last week from Metro) doing some gig at a racecourse, or Penelope Cruz and her new underwear range, I’ll generally give the piece a miss.

Sometimes it’s interesting and relevant. I quite like to know that a book reviewer has a new novel coming out or what their credentials are.

It’s fine. I understand how the game works, although I miss the era when a publication interviewed someone simply because they were interesting or had something worthwhile to say. But those days are gone; no-one gives an interview now without a quid pro quo.

It used to be, however, that certain sections were safe – like sports, for example. No more.
A recent Sunday Times piece on the Ashes featured interviews with three England cricketers. And there, in the bottom right was the dreaded sentence: ‘James Anderson, Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott were test-driving the new Jaguar XFR-S. Visit jaguar.com.’

Well, how is that relevant? It adds not one iota of interest to the piece, and in fact annoys me to distraction.

All power to Jaguar’s PR people, but how have they managed to link access to cricketers to mention of their bloody car? And why do the newspapers roll over so easily?

It gets worse. This time, also with Ian Bell, in the Standard: ‘Ian Bell was speaking at an Asda Kwik Cricket Community day, where he helped coach local schoolchildren. Asda is now in its eighth year of sponsorship of the National Kwik Cricket Competition. Go to your.asda.com/kwik-cricket blah blah blah.’

Now I seriously don’t give a monkey’s about Asda’s sponsorship of some funny cricket competition, and I seriously resent having it thrust into my face. If they want to promote their involvement, let them take some ads. Just don’t let them spoil my day.

It’s time to say enough.