Regulators have marketers squarely in their sites these days, particularly those pitching to children and consumers of pharmaceuticals.
“This might be one of the most challenging periods for…media regulation and media activity in the last many, many years,” said Adonis Hoffman, an attorney for the AAAA, who headed a panel on regulatory issues during the Orlando conference.
There were 19 “events” in 2005 that affected children’s advertising, said Jim Davidson, a member of AAAA’s legal team in Washington, who also heads up the Alliance for American Advertising and the Advertising Tax Coalition.
“These are significant events, major bills introduced and hearings,” Davidson said, who called upon the industry to get involved. “Unless senators and representatives hear from you and hear how important protection of advertising is, we’re not going to win these battles,” he said.
Using what he termed a “classic example” of legal actions aimed at the ad industry, he said that next Wednesday the Senate Committee on Health Education Labor and Pensions, will mark up a bill, the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, that if enacted, would earmark $90 million to study the impact on children of marketing— of food— all forms, including electronic media.
“It’s gaining lots of momentum,” Davidson warned. “It’s an election year and there are lots of Republicans and Democrats who want to pass this and the way it’s fashioned right now it’s got a lot of problems and it will cause your industry a lot of problems.”
Hoffman said that the underlying premise of the focus on children’s advertising is that somehow advertising and marketing are responsible for at least one of the big problems in modern society: obesity in children.
Davidson said that last year two major studies released by the Institute of Medicine tried— have not found— establish a causal relationship between children’s food advertising and rising obesity rates. The committee preparing the report stopped short of saying that TV ads are a direct cause of the epidemic of obesity in children, but said that the connection is strong (Xtra, Dec. 7).
“No one is going to deny that there is no relationship out there, but scientists have not been able to draw a direct link,” he said. “What the focus on this does is take the focus away from what your industry and the food industry have been doing to correct the problem.
He said food manufacturers and advertisers are responding. In the last three years alone, food manufacturers, who are major advertisers, have introduced 4,500 new and reformulated products to make them healthier for consumers and to respond to a rising public demand in the marketplace for healthier foods, he said.
Davidson added that the Children’s Advertising Review Unit, the advertising industry’s self-regulatory mechanism, recently announced a major review of its entire structure and principles to respond to rising public concerns (Xtra, Feb. 7, 2006).
Hoffman said that a lot of attention is also focused on prescription drug advertising, especially following the outcry over erectile dysfunction ads that have spurred the ire of regulators.
Davidson said that several legislators have introduced bills, including one by Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA), who proposed a ban on ads for all erectile dysfunction medicines within the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
“That bill got a head of steam behind it and almost got attached to another piece of legislation,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Dr. Bill Frist (R-TN) spent an hour on the Senate floor in July, excoriating all forms of prescription drug advertising, saying that it undermined the relationship between doctors and patients, Davidson said. Studies he has seen show the opposite, he says, but at the core of the focus is a government concern that advertising is going to drive too much use of prescription drugs.
He said Congress forgets that the power of advertising helps people get better. He cited a statistic that he said he uses during every meeting with a member of congress; that 23 million to 30 million Americans who saw an ad for a prescription drug, asked their doctor about a medical condition they have never discussed before.
“That’s a public health revolution, that’s what the power of information and advertising can do when it is properly and responsibility directed to inform people about diseases and the treatment of those diseases,” Davidson said. “And in the case of erectile ads, advertising has helped lower the anxiety that a lot of Americans have about talking about embarrassing or difficult medical conditions, including depression….It has brought it into the mainstream of conversation.”
The 2006 AAAA Media Conference & Trade Show, held in Orlando, FL, ended on Friday after posting record-breaking attendance of 1,442 advertising and media executives and 104 exhibitors. By comparison, the inaugural show, held in Jacksonville, FL, in 1994, hosted 375 attendees and 40 exhibitors, AAAA said.
The 2007 Media Conference & Trade Show will be held at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, Feb. 28 through March 2, 2007.
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