Advertising codes failing NZ children

By Candy Lashkari

A study conducted at Otago University’s Wellington campus in New Zealand by Louise Thornley and her colleagues has found that the self regulating Advertising Standards Authority is failing to protect children. As per the advertising codes, advertisements are not supposed to target children to encourage consumption of junk food.

Many manufacturers of such foods are repeatedly ignoring this. This leads to children turning overweight from consumption of such foods. The failure to implement these advertising codes can be found in violation of the United Nations requirements designed to protect children.

Complaints given to the Advertising Standards Complaints Board have usually been screened out by the chair of the board at a preliminary stage. "One board decision we looked at ruled that the advertiser had not directed the ad at children and therefore the children's code did not apply," said Ms Thornley. "But in fact the main actor was a child, the product was ‘lollies’ and the ad was screened at 6.50pm when many children are still watching TV."

The authors of the study want the Government to take over the regulation of advertisements from the Advertising Standards Authority. The public health research team found that the Advertising Standards Complaints Board does not acknowledge the targeting of children by advertisers to pester their parents for unhealthy food as a valid ground for complaints.

"In another ad which ran for several weeks, [Bluebird] potato chips were promoted as 'an ideal addition to a healthy balanced school lunch', which is totally inconsistent with Government policy on healthy eating. They upheld the complaint, but the point we were making is there aren't any penalties for advertisers. They just pull the ad. It may have run for a week, so it's a weak system." said Ms Thornley who is advocating for stronger punitive measures for advertisers who are not following the advertising codes.

Louise Thornley also said that they believe some of the authority's decisions are unjustified, inconsistent and too lenient. "It's really just a slap on the wrist. They voluntarily withdraw the ad, but there are no sanctions or fines for the companies that breach the codes."

The chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority, Mr Rick Osbone said that withdrawing an ad was a penalty because of the amount spent on preparing the ad. "It comes at a cost to the agency and the client. In one case recently it was $1 million. There are large incentives to comply with the codes."

Mr Osbone also commented that the organization was about to introduce a new code which would place more responsibility on those manufacturing and advertising for food products. He also said that the new code would be able to allay the concern of the public health researchers who have undertaken this study.