Ethical advertising

27 February 2020

• When it comes to advertising, one hardly thinks about their psychological effect, environmental impact or how they can affect people’s health and daily lives. But all these are embodied in the ethics of advertising. Sri Lanka’s rapidly evolving advertising sector has sometimes faced public outrage for promoting unethical content. But ethical and responsible advertising in Sri Lanka has largely escaped significant attention. But in neighbouring countries like India, Pakistan, Nepal and countries like the US and the UK, there has been much debate and discussion on the topic. In this backdrop,  spoke to some of the advertising professionals on the issue.

“Depends on the client”- Shabeeb Muzammil 

Shabeeb Muzammil, Associate Creative Director at LOOPS Solutions, said there were no legal or ethical guidelines for advertising in Sri Lanka, but only certain regulations. “In Sri Lanka, one cannot advertise certain medicines, cigarettes and alcohol,” he said. Ethics, meanwhile, mostly depended on the client. “While most advertising ethics stem from societal and cultural norms, the ethical side of advertising is mostly up to the client. The job of the agency is to recommend the best manner to market the product, keeping in mind business ethics and sustainability. But the client makes the final call,” he said.    

The guidelines under the SLRC code, and the Press Institute code of ethics aren’t enforceable and not followed 

“Grey area”- Dileepa Abeysekera

With years of experience in the field, Dileepa Abeysekera said ethical advertising revolved around social norms. While highlighting the lack of laws, he said the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) Code of Advertising Standards and Practice had guidelines related to child viewers and child actors in commercials. “But over time, due to the lack of enforce-ability, the industry has gradually stopped adhering to the code,” Mr. Abeysekera said and pointed out that there were regulations for food, pesticides and medicines. “Usually, the Food Advertising Committee must approve the script. Sometimes the committee checks the advertisement to ensure there is no breach of conduct or misinformation,” he said.   

Mr. Abeysekara called for an effective regulatory mechanism and clear guidelines for agencies and clients. “Ethical advertising is currently a grey area in Sri Lanka. Enforceable regulations will make it clearer for clients and agencies to understand what is right and wrong,” he said adding that Sri Lanka’s attitude towards Intellectual Property (IP) law and copyright law should also change. “As a country, we still don’t recognize IP laws and we blatantly violate them without realizing it.”   

Commenting on the reasons for unethical advertising, Mr. Abeysekera said people tended to push the limits to be innovative. “These innovative ideas, and going beyond limits, can sometimes cause advertisements to be unethical and hurt societal sentiments. When agencies realize the idea is harmful, they tend to take it down. But if the client wants it up, the agency has no choice but to keep it,” he said and added that some advertising campaigns had been taken down due to sheer public pressure. Mr. Abeysekera said creators should be mindful of the general public and target audience. “Creators should be mindful of their level of manipulation in advertisements. It is acceptable to represent a situation, but unacceptable to excessively manipulate it,” he said.    

Enforceable regulations will make it clearer for clients and agencies to understand what is right and wrong  

Recalling some instances of unethical advertising, he said: “During and after the civil war, the advertising industry promoted the sentiments of only one community, and not the other. People forgot about the ads, but their psychological impact became apparent some years later. Advertisements shouldn’t be skewed only towards the sentiments of one community, but rather should bring out the whole perspective.” Mr. Abeysekera said if both the advertising and media industries had a regulatory code of ethics, the media too could reject unethical ads.   

“IAA monitors ethical advertising” – Laila Gunasekere

Past President and Member of the Board of International Advertising Association (IAA), Laila Gunesekere said ethical advertising was in the DNA of any good agency. “At IAA, we monitor ethical advertising. We do not set down rules. But ethics is something we take for granted. Something we follow every day,” she said. Anyone can complain to the IAA on a breach in ethical boundaries. “We will evaluate the complaint, and if it crosses ethical boundaries, we advise the agency to remove the ad,” Ms. Gunesekere said. Gender, racial and religious bias constitute a breach of ethical advertising, but it’s rare to see ads promoting such biases. “We do not at any stage run down a competitor. And as an industry, I feel we’re fairly ethical,” she said. “Sri Lankan consumers are active consumers. This helps the industry uphold ethical standards as advertisers and clients fear backlash.”   

“Lack of data protection and privacy laws a challenge”- Alyna Haji Omar

Alyna Haji Omar, CEO of Wunderman Thompson Sri Lanka, complained about the lack of data protection and privacy laws in Sri Lanka. Wunderman Thompson Sri Lanka is a part of the UK-based WPP Group, and follows global standards on ethics. “The WPP Code of Conduct and Group Sustainability Policy help our people in dealing with ethical, social and environmental subjects. They apply to all employees and are defined and implemented on a global and local level, with mandatory ethics and code-of-conduct training for all employees,” she said.    

At IAA, we monitor ethical advertising. We do not set down rules. But ethics is something we take for granted  

Ms. Omar said if a client opposed internal guidelines, the company had to decline the project. “Our ethics training includes scenarios to help employees identify ethical risks associated with client, work and decision making processes,” she said. “We back up our stance using data and statistics, trying to get the customer to understand the impact of advertising for a particular product,” she said.   

Ms. Omar also noted that unethical advertising has been on the decline, and clients were becoming more responsible because they did not want to cause a controversy. Touching on responsible marketing, she said clients were being more careful and responsible when marketing beauty products and confectionaries. “Marketers are moving away from the concept of fair skin being better than dark skin to self-confidence and healthy body imagery. When it comes to confectioneries like biscuits, clients are careful to communicate clearly, and bring out the message of consuming responsibly with nutritional information. There are many regulations regarding children,” Ms. Omar said. 
She said currently, marketers were trying to build a more a socially-conscious point of view in customer mindsets, through purpose-marketing. Purpose marketing is when advertisements for brands carry content that bring out a message championing a social cause and called for a better depiction of women in ads. “There is superficiality in the portrayal of women. We are not portraying the real hopes and fears of women, and there is need for a more multi-dimensional approach in the portrayal,” Ms. Omar said. “There is also a whitewash when it comes to portrayal of our culture and national identity. We need to be more ambitious when tacking socially sensitive issues like LGBTIQ rights, issues of single mothers and divorces etc. I hope to see brands that will challenge certain cultural and societal norms.”   

She said she believed the biggest challenge the industry faced was how to source and distribute information and personal data. “When we deal with algorithms, the ethical side of it is remarkably blurry. We’ve hardly any laws relating to data protection and privacy and it is challenging for us as other countries have such laws in place,” Ms Omar said.    

The WPP Code of Conduct and Group Sustainability Policy help our people in dealing with ethical, social and environmental    subjects

“Need enforceable guidelines” – Chanakya Jayadeva

Author and entertainment and media lawyer, Chanakya Jayadeva said Sri Lanka needed laws on ethical advertising. “The guidelines under the SLRC code, and the Press Institute code of ethics aren’t enforceable and not followed. Like in the US, where the Federal Trade Commission has an enforceable Advertising Code of Ethics and in India, where there are various Acts in place to regulate advertisements in various media, Sri Lanka too should have enforceable guidelines,” he said. Such enforceable guidelines would help regulate the content and distribution of ads.   

However, Mr. Jayadeva said though there weren’t defining laws, there were defamation and copyright laws which advertising agencies and clients should follow. Defamation laws could be used when an ad directly or indirectly defamed a person or institution. Mr. Jayadeva noted there were instances where ads had defamed individuals. He added that advertisers usually violated copyright laws as they used images, videos and audio clips that were copyright protected or under ‘fair use’. “Fair use is not for commercial purposes. It can only be used for educational purposes,” Mr. Jayadeva said adding that a common ethical violation was ‘false advertising’, where there would be misinformation regarding the product.  

While most advertising ethics stem from societal and cultural norms, the ethical side of advertising is mostly up to the client 

M. Jayadeva said he and a group experts and lawyers would be drafting new laws on advertising regulations. “I believe that when the rule of law is strengthened, the industry gets strengthened too,” he said.   

In many countries, advertising guidelines are topic-specific, and cover a wide range of areas like children, health claims, telemarketing, online marketing, endorsements, environmental marketing etc. In Sri Lanka, studies have found links between childhood obesity and medical issues like diabetes, cholesterol and advertising. However, due to a growing public outcry, awareness on responsible marketing and advocacy on responsible consumerism has been on the rise. Yet, the absence of legal guidelines in advertising and data protection and privacy causes ethical complications in the local advertising and marketing sector, as it rapidly evolves internationally.