Ad association hits back at ‘baseless and inaccurate’ Tankard Reist sexploitation piece
The Australian Association of National Advertisers has described an opinion piece written by Melinda Tankard Reist, in which the author claims industy self regulation has failed to stop the objectification of women and the sexualisation of children, as “baseless and inaccurate”.
The AANA’s response, written by CEO Scott McClellan, reads:
The recent guest post by Melinda Tankard Reist, “Stop making sex objects of women and kids”, makes baseless and inaccurate claims about the advertising self-regulatory system.
The fact is, much to the frustration of its critics, the AANA self-regulatory system is working well and should continue. A recent parliamentary inquiry acknowledged this fact and recommended that the self-regulatory system should continue along with the complaints mechanism which underpins it.
Whereas MTR’s piece was incoherent, much like radio station MTR, SM’s rebuttal is eminently digestible, much like radio station 2SM.
It is a long time since i have heard someone defend a piece because it is like 2SM! Ah, that would be home on the John Laws range, where never is heard an intelligent word…
“a ban on the use of sexual imagery targeted at children” <= interesting wording here. This means that condom ads at bus stops where the man and woman are covered only in body paint, billboards for strip clubs in public places which include websites for those clubs (essentially porn sites with only 'tick this box' age verification) sexpo billboards are all allowed because they aren't 'targeted' at children. Nice loophole you allowed for yourselves. AANA when we are talking about outdoor ads, the target is 'everyone.' self regulation is a joke.
Big surprise, the Ad association rejects claims that self-regulation is a giant failure.
Scott McLellan claims there are guidelines in place to protect children. I would love for him to explain to me how these work when my children are exposed to huge sexualised billboards. Billboards and other outdoor advertising are there for the purpose of being seen and attracting attention. But it seems all an advertiser has to do is say “This highly sexualised billboard ad is not directly targeting children”. Maybe I’ll tell that to my five year old next time he asks about one.
Self regulation is not working. Even if complaints are upheld, the offending ad has typically already been up for a couple of months.
“The self-regulatory system applies in the outdoor space and is working well to meet community expectations as reflected in the complaints figures for that medium.”
Either that, or most people have resigned themselves to having their public space plastered with ads and don’t realise they have to take proactive steps to complain about them.
But I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that the AANA is leaping to positively spin the system that lets its members essentially get away with anything that they want.
@Kate
You are confusing target and audience. In the outdoor space, everyone that is exposed to the medium is part of the audience, but the TARGET is something that the advertiser can specify relative to their product offering. I’m not disagreeing with you, because children do fall into the audience of such billboards/posters that are designed to target an older cohort. But you must not get the two confused.
Similar to adult only programming slots on TV, nothing is to stop kids from staying up late and watching it anyways, but it is targeted to adults.
Damned if we do, damned if we don’t? It’s not a perfect world…
If this regulation is so effective, why does the current advertising climate feel so seedy and cheap? Why do I feel so disgusted out by American Apparel ads and why do I have to think about how on earth I’m going to protect my future kids from [formerly community] space that is now used to sell messages that aren’t positive/appropriate?
Come on now and pull up your socks. There are a lot of progressive thinkers feeling pretty ill right now. Change gears… we’re meant to be moving away from discrimination, not toward. We’re meant to be celebrating women’s contributions, not undermining them. We’re meant to be looking after our kids, not showering them with adult issues and ideas.