Advertising Regulation

Advertising Regulation

Advertising regulation or advertising control is the use of state and federal government power to regulate advertising operations and content. Advertising control is used by the government and other institutions to ensure that businesses do not present or use false information in their adverts on billboards, mass media, or social media (Friedman, 2016). Advertising regulations are laid out by government authorities for business organizations to abide by. If a business organization fails to follow any advertising regulations, the organization may be prosecuted and face a civil suit. There are various reasons why the government regulates advertising. Through the regulation of advertising, clear definitions of the various types of advertising and the appropriate legal vocabulary are provided. For instance, the size of billboards and the language that is appropriate are provided. This ensures that businesses do not get around advertising control by taking advantage of legal loopholes. The regulation also specifies where advertising material such as billboards should be located and the areas where advertising is not allowed.

Advertising regulation is responsible for the control of the language and information used in advertising. It ensures that the public is protected from misinformation through advertising. Billboards cannot, for instance, have flashing images or video, since these can distract drivers and cause accidents (Wakil et al., 2016). Advertising cannot contain information that is untrue, as this could be misleading to the public. It is important that advertising is regulated to protect the public and ensure that only factual information is used in advertising. In recent years, advertising regulation has become a current issue, with many organizations that provide advertising platforms putting in place regulations to govern adverts. In the United States and the United Kingdom, stringent regulations have been introduced to govern social media and internet advertising, as a result of the increased online presence of organizations and the public. Cases of organizations violating advertising regulations have been on the rise over the past five years.

New advertising regulations are being developed to cope with emerging issues such as gender equality, data privacy, and cybersecurity. According to an article in The Guardian (Waterson, 2018), the UK government prohibits advertisements that depict sexist stereotypes or ads that depict women and men in gender-stereotypical roles. The author explains that all British organizations would not be allowed to use sales promotions that portray women and men engaging in gender-stereotypical activities. These regulations were driven by the fear that gender-stereotypical advertisements many be fueling pay inequality and inflicting psychological harm. Under the imposed regulations, businesses cannot show people failing to complete certain tasks because of their gender, for instance. Advertisements that suggest that people need to change their bodies or looks to become successful or more attractive are also prohibited by the regulations imposed by the UK Advertising Standards Authority (Waterson, 2018). The authority explained that such advertisements fuel gender inequality and problems such as the gender pay gap and lesser women seeking careers in science and technology.

A recent article on the same newspaper reported the first cases of advertisements that were banned in the United Kingdom for violating the new rules imposed earlier in the year – the gender stereotypical advertisements (Sweney, 2019). The two television advertisements were banned after the public complained that they showed harmful stereotypes. One of the ads showed two fathers having lunch at a restaurant where food was circulated using a conveyor belt. During their chatting, their children are whisked away on the conveyor belt and one of them says: “let’s not tell mum” (Sweney, 2019). The public complained that the ad showed a bad stereotype that dads were not capable of taking good care of children. The second ad showed men engaged in active and adventurous activities, while a woman was “passive”. It was banned for the stereotype that men were more risk-tolerant and active than women.

An article on The New York Times explains the intentional nature of company advertising that violates the privacy of people and why the regulation of advertising is important (Weinberg, 2019). The author explains that companies have the ability to sell advertisements without having to damage privacy (contextual advertising), but they choose not to. According to Weinberg (2019), Google started advertising in a contextual manner, but moved to behavioral advertising, collecting private user data and using it to filter ads. With contextual advertising, businesses do not need to know anything about the target audience or the people viewing an ad. For instance, when a person searches for a car, they get a car advertisement. With behavioral advertising, which is the current trend in advertising, ads follow an individual to read their search activity and their private information. This type of advertising often results in manipulation and online discrimination. Behavioral advertising can only be controlled through advertising regulation and strong privacy laws. According to the author, “Strong privacy laws will force the digital advertising industry to return to its roots in contextual advertising” (Weinberg, 2019).

In conclusion, advertising regulation is important as it protects the public from misinformation and unauthorized access to data. With the regulation of advertising, the public is assured of factual information and protected from harmful messages such as gender stereotypes. It is the role of advertising regulators to ensure that organizations that manage advertisements and businesses promoting their services and products abide by the rules and regulations imposed to protect the public.

References

Friedman, D. A. (2016). Refining advertising regulation. Conn. L. Rev., 49, 837.

Sweney, M. (2019, August 13). First ads banned for contravening UK gender stereotyping rules. Retrieved October 3, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/14/first-ads-banned-for-contravening-gender-stereotyping-rules.

Wakil, K., Hussnain, M. Q., Tahir, A., & Naeem, M. A. (2016, June). Regulating outdoor advertisement boards; employing spatial decision support system to control urban visual pollution. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 37, No. 1, p. 012060). IOP Publishing.

Waterson, J. (2018, December 14). UK advertising watchdog to crack down on sexist stereotypes. Retrieved October 3, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/dec/14/uk-advertising-watchdog-to-crack-down-on-sexist-stereotypers.

Weinberg, G. (2019, June 19). What if We All Just Sold Non-Creepy Advertising? Retrieved October 3, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/opinion/facebook-google-privacy.html.