You can guess the context.
10 October 2006
Dear Sir or Madam,
YOUR ADVERTISING
We investigate complaints to ensure that non-broadcast marketing communications comply with the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (the CAP Code), prepared by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP). We also investigate complaints to ensure that television and radio advertising complies with the CAP (broadcast) Codes.
We have received the attached complaint about your national press ad (copy enclosed) and we welcome your help to resolve it. If the copy is incomplete, please send us a complete version. If the copy is difficult to read, please send us a better copy.
Please also check your company name and address details at the top of the complaint notification. If they are incorrect, please let us know.
We shall consider the complaint in particular under Clause 5.1 of the Code (copy enclosed). You should be aware that marketing communications must comply with all other relevant clauses, among which are the attached underlying principles. A copy of the 11th edition of the Code may be obtained from the CAP website, www.cap.org.uk or the ASA website, www.asa.org.uk.
The Code requires marketers to hold documentary evidence for their claims before submitting an ad for publication. Please give us all the substantiation and information you would like us to have. Although it is for you to decide what to submit, you will need to comment on the complainants’ specific objection as outlined in the attached complaint notification. We shall be happy to receive anything else you think is relevant.
Please let us know whether the material to which this complaint relates was prepared/handled by you or by another company on your behalf and, if so, which company. If you have used an agency, please tell us its name. Please let us know what plans you have for future use of your ad. Can you provide us with a media schedule?
If the ASA Council upholds the complaints, its ruling might affect the acceptability of the same or similar claims/advertisements appearing in other media, including broadcast. We are telling you this now so you are aware of the potential ramifications of this investigation. Please let us know whether the same or similar claims are made or are to be made in advertisements in other media, including broadcast.
Our Complaints Procedure leaflet is enclosed.
The ASA’s effectiveness depends on resolving complaints fairly and swiftly. An unreasonable delay in responding to our enquiries may be considered a breach of the Code. So that we can conclude this matter as soon as possible, please respond in writing, preferably by e-mail to […..], within five working days. If you need more time please let us know. If you are not the right person to deal with this letter please tell us and pass the letter on to someone who is. If we do not receive a reply within five working days from the date of this letter, we shall submit to the ASA Council a draft recommendation upholding the complaint. [My emphasis]
Thank you for your co-operation. We look forward to hearing from you by 17 October.
Yours sincerely
[…………]
Investigations Executivecc: [Newspaper]
bcc: NPA [=Newspaper Publishers Association]
Yes; they did disclose the “bcc”. The accompanying leaflet sets out the complaints procedure. It ends, inevitably, on a minatory note:
Most advertising parties act quickly to amend or withdraw their ad if we find it breaks the codes. The ASA acts against the few who do not. Broadcasters’ licenses require them to stop transmitting ads that break the codes and we can ask publishers not to print ads that dont meet the rukes. Other sanctions exist to prevent direct mail that breaches the code from being distributed and to reduce the likelihood of posters appearing that breach the codes on taste and decency and social responsibility grounds.
Ultimately, we can refer non-broadcast advertisers who persistently break the CAP Code to the Office of Fair Trading for legal action under the Control of Misleading Advertisement Regulations. Broadcasters who continually air ads that break the codes can be referred to Ofcom, which has the power to fine them or even revoke their licence.
You can guess the context.
Not without some clues I can’t 🙁
I bet I can guess the context!
The Devil will not be mocked.
My immediate thought too.
I assume they are attacking its taste and decency. Attacking it for content could provide a wonderful opportunity to debate and defend your inference in high profile public arena.
From the ASA website:
The whole concept of this stuff is political correctness. Yuk.
Under 5.1 (and 5.3), they must demonstrate “widespread offence”: ask for evidence.
Under 5.2, NO2ID surely considered public sensitivities, but just came to a different conclusion, on balance, than some other people (eg the complainants).
And don’t forget: all publicity is good publicity. Maybe the picture could even make it to the “front pages”, with discussion in the leaders.
For next time, perhaps a larger bar code, slightly begraggled, for a “Stalin” effect.
Oh, and I do realise I am severely at risk of being thought to teach my grandmother to suck eggs: it’s just being supportive, you know.
Best regards
I would, if I were you, be inclined to refer them to the reply given in the case of Arkell vs Pressdram.
Sounds like an excellent chance for free publicity. Even if they make you withdraw the ad, it only illustrates the truth of the ad, that the current government is fascist and supresses dissident views.
I seem to recall that Hitler shut down a paper that ran a story about Hitlers muttish ancestry and which analysed his physical features by Nazi standards and found him to be subhuman. Drawing a parallel to that case would certainly expand upon the theme.
Perhaps what can now be done is to analyse the behavior of Mr. Blair by the nanny-states standards of anti-social “crime”, and thus determine that he is in need of remand to the states correctional facilities for attitude adjustment.
So, what did the complaint say, and who made it?
If we knew, maybe we could complain against the complainant; there must surely be plenty of grounds.
According to today’s Times, amateur video bloggers are under threat from EU broadcast rules.
Curiously, Blair’s Government are seeking to “prevent an EU directive that could extend broadcasting regulations to the internet, hitting popular video-sharing websites such as YouTube.”
Or are their protestations just a superficial smokescreen, so that they can pretend they opposed something they will actually keenly wave through?
ASA complaints themselves are confidential. Unless the ASA in its wisdom decides to disclose it even who complained, never mind the exact terms in which they did so, is not revealed to the accused, even under the protection of the confidentiality which prevents me from confirming or denying any of the guesses above.
Thats the trouble with secret trials. It could be worse. I’m not in much danger of being locked up. Yet. I hope.
“The Code requires marketers to hold documentary evidence for their claims before submitting an ad for publication. “
Given that the only claim that the ad makes explicitly is that “ID cards have worked well before”, this ought to be a doddle.
😉
Tony Blair is clearly offensive, what on Earth were you doing publishing his picture 😉
Seriously, when considering the complaint I hope they compare your effective and simple advert to those of the “other side”, such as this one or this one.
“Progessive” people (and the political and administrative class tend to be full of such people – trained to be that way by the “education system”) do not accept that “commercial speech” comes under free speech protection (so they hold that they can “regulate” ads as they see fit).
Of course “progressive” people do not hold that “hate speech” (speech supposedly attacking any group they happen to favour) comes under free speech protection either.
And (again, of course) “progressive” people do not hold that even “non hate speech” political speech comes under free speech protection – if (for example) it violates “campaign finance reform”.
The truth is that “progressive” (or “moderate” or “modern” or whatever name they choose to call themselves – even “liberal” is a common name) regard the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in much the same way as they regard the Second and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States – as something to be “interpreted” out of existence.
In Britain the task of such folk is even less difficult, for few here have even heard of the British Bill of Rights, and various European and International “human rights” documents are vague and full of contradictions. Indeed such documents often lay obligations on government to be statist (i.e. to provide various benefits or “positive rights”) even if those in office do not wish to be so statist.