Who are ad violators and how are they violating ad practices?
By Abimbola Mohammed
Ethical business practices are important in every industry. The advertising business is certainly one of such. Consumers may not forget past ads that they suspected were too good to be true that turned out to be less than truthful.
Due to bad advertising practices, many contemporary consumers expect transparency and decency within the space – the assurance that advertisers respect their sensibilities and solidly stand behind the claims in their ad messages.
According to the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON), some distasteful ads pushed into the nation’s ad space in recent times were neither submitted nor approved for exposure by the Advertising Standards Panel (ASP).
A case of such was Globacom’s “Glo Link Your NIN” commercial which featured actress Osas Ighodaro, who exposed her cleavage in the commercial. Same goes for the controversial Sterling Bank online ad that compared Jesus to “Agege bread”.
At a recent press briefing, Dr. Lekan Fadolapo, Director General, ARCON noted that the Council mandate covers an individual, organization, body corporate or agency of the federal government, state government or local government which engages in, regulates, sponsors, or takes benefit of advertising services or advertisement or marketing communication services and any person who sponsors or takes benefit for marketing communication services.
“President Muhammudu Buhari signed into law the ARCON bill into law and the Act reposed the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria’s (APCON) law and enacts the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) law, which is Act of 2022. The Act stipulated to establish the Council for advertising, advertisement and marketing communication as the apex regulatory authority for Nigeria’s advertising industry as well make provision for the control of advertising to ensure the protection of the general public and consumer as well as promote local content and entrench best international practices. So, the ARCON bill was signed by the president.”
He explained that advertisement according to law means a notice, announcement, exposure, publication, statement, announcesorial, informatial, commercial, hype, display, town crier, show, event, logo, payoff or trademark that is intended to promote, advocate, solicit, showcase, endorse, vote, or support a product, service, a course, an idea, a person or an organization with the intention to influence, sway, arouse, patronize, entice or attract a person, people or organization by an identified sponsor, irrespective of the medium or platform. He added that if anybody is doing anything within the stipulated space, the person is engaging in advertisement.
In the same vein, Dr. Fadolapo defined advertising as an action activity constructed or undertaken directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally aimed at reacting, planning, strategizing, managing, developing, producing propagating service or facilitating an advertisement brand or marketing communications ideas. “Action activity constructed or undertaken directly or indirectly intentionally or unintentionally aimed at reacting, planning, strategizing, managing, developing, producing, propagating service or facilitating an advertisement brand or marketing communications ideas.”
While reminiscing on the challenges the apex regulatory body faced, he said: “Before now, we’ve had a series of challenges as ARCON, ranging from court cases in the remit of our law, the powers of ARCON we all know that between 1988 and so many things has changed about the way and manner we practice advertising. We have moved from traditional media to new media, technology has redefined the advertising space. Consequently that led to the National Assembly passing the bill and the president signing the bill. So, today we have a new law we call the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria law.”
Speaking with MARKETING EDGE in a separate interview, the DG said: “We are gatekeepers of the advertising space, so we will encourage people to blow whistle and inform us if there are violations. There have been other violations and we have come strong on them, but now that we have a strong law we will take care of that space.”
He advised that people should endeavour to speak up whenever they see anyone violating advertising practice, adding that the days of not being aware were over.
“Anyone that infringes on other people’s copyright will be taken to court. The days of unethical practice are over and with all these frameworks that we have come up with, the industry will be better for it and Nigerians will also be better for it,” he said.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Comment
No comments found.