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‘Do you know your ad rules?’ One agency boss says that the industry should look closely at new UK guidelines…
I ATTENDED last week’s Advice:am Video Games Seminar, hosted by the ASA and CAP, at their central London office. The event was in response to the Byron report and was part of CAP’s launch of a new Video Games and Films Advertising Help Note. As well as a few ASA/CAP experts, ELSPA’s own Michael Rawlinson presented some very
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ELSPA codes, we felt it important to have the opportunity to hear first hand from experts within the system and to question them directly on the codes as they apply to our business. After all, we always do our best to deliver top quality, and legal, ads to our clients. The key thing that did come out of the day was the ‘context’ element.
What is strange is that so few agencies that focus on games clients decided to attent the Advice:am Games Seminar. Jon Sloan, ANX Agency
useful information on the systems for regulation of games ads, with case studies drawn from all industries, but with a focus on ads promoting games and movies. Even though we’re up to speed on the CAP, BCAP and
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For instance, one really pertinent example of ‘context’ given was a poster ad for the 2008 Jon Avnet movie Righteous Kill. The image on the poster was pretty innocuous and the strapline said, ‘There’s nothing
wrong with a little shooting as long as the right people get shot.’ Not too contentious given the subject matter. However, the company had placed it on the London Underground sites, including Stockwell tube, at the time of the de Menezes inquiry. So it ultimately failed the ‘likely to cause serious or widespread offence’ test. The audience was a mixed bag of lawyers, publishers and other interested parties, mostly digital agencies, oddly enough. What is stranger, though, is that so few other agencies, especially those that focus as we do on games clients, decided to attend. We even spoke to the creative services head of a large publisher, who said she’d notified all the agencies that she works with about it and yet they weren’t there. Now, I know that these guys may claim that they’re too busy
or already well informed about the regs but, come on, you’ve got to question the commitment of ‘games specialist’ agencies that choose not to attend such a relevant event. Jon Sloan, ANX Agency
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