‘Blackmail advertising' on the increase

And worse, any number of media are offering more and more paid "advertorials" - advertisements disguised as editorial content which are supposed to have the word "ADVERTISEMENT" printed boldly across the top but which in ever increasing cases don't have anything to warn consumers that what they are reading is an ad and not a news story.

Free editorial

This situation is being exacerbated by some advertising agencies insisting that they will only place advertising on condition the medium concerned agrees to publish free editorial content provided by the advertiser. And as times get tougher, more and more media will find it increasingly difficult to say no. Something that not too long ago they didn't have to think twice about doing.

While it can be argued that "business is business" and that advertisers would be doing no wrong by insisting on an ad-for-editorial quid pro quo, there is no question that consumers are being misled. In the same way as television magazine programmes only featuring products and services if the suppliers agree to pay for it.

Quite apart from misleading consumers, these practices also eventually diminish the credibility of the medium concerned, which in the long run is extremely dangerous.

Identify advertorial

The media industry representative bodies would be doing their members an enormous service if they outlawed "blackmail" and insisted that all paid-for content be identified as such. Particularly in cases where products and services can be perceived to be endorsed by the medium concerned.

As lack of credibility, economic forces and other factors make traditional advertising, such as the 30-second commercial on TV, less effective, there is no doubt that the mass media will come up with new ways and means to getting product and service messages across to the consumer. And this will certainly involve subtle methods that aren't immediately identified as advertising by the consumer.

New challenges

This in turn presents the advertising industry's watchdog body, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of South Africa, with some completely new challenges. Right now the ASA can only act against misleading, offensive or unsubstantive advertising and has no jurisdiction over editorial matter in the media. Any editorial content that is offered by the media to advertisers will, as far as the ASA is concerned, be considered editorial and not advertising. Even if that content is produced by the advertiser and contains all sorts of misleading or unsubstantiated claims. There will be no way that the ASA could prove anything.

As it is on those TV lifestyle and magazine programmes, where presenters can make all sorts of wild and woolly claims about content that, even though it is being paid for by advertisers, is seen to be editorial comment and therefore outside of any ASA jurisdiction

With the advent of branded television, which is set to change the mass media environment dramatically, there will be even more reason for the various industry representative bodies to carefully consider credibility, standards, best practice and governance issues.

Powerless

It is fast becoming another area where the ASA is powerless. For years now the watchdog body has been unable to act against any claims made in the classified ads in newspapers. For some reason this is outside of the ASA's mandate and the reason why newspapers are able to continue to accept smalls advertisements with such blatant sexual deviance content of such a magnitude that if it appeared in a display advertisement would have Parliament blowing a fuse in an instant.

The time is coming where more and more advertising will become disguised and unless the mass media wants to completely lose its promotional power, it would be well advised to start looking at ways of curtailing practices that are slowly but surely eating away at their credibility.