30.1.6

Task 6

1. The Advertising standards authority regulates the TV advertising in the uk. They apply the codes made by the committees  of Advertising practise. It is an independent regulator of all advertising in all ranges of media and one of them being Television. If they judge an ad to be in breach in the advertising codes, it must be withdrawn or amended. It is funded by the advertising space and not the tax payer. The advertising codes are written by two industry committees, the advertising practice and the broadcast committee of  advertising practise. 

2. There are 10 stages to making a complaint. First you have to check whether the complaint is covered by the ASA. If it is then you can make a complaint via text, phone call, online or write to them.  You are then given a contact who will deal with the problem and a reference to this case. The names of the people who complain are kept confidential unless the complainer is asking to put on the list. They promise they will resolve with the complaint quickly and in some cases an advert can receive thousands of complaints. However ASA will analyse the complaints and find if they are actually suitable to be submitted, also the advert could be changed for a minor mistake, so a complaint about that would not be submitted. Next the advertiser is contacted to give a reason for the advertisement and justification as to how they think the advert is appropriate. Next ASA decide if the advertising codes have been breached by analysing all the information and facts, this then leads to findings being published to media (which happens every Wednesday). Finally the advert that broke the advertising codes must be required to change or modify there advert, if not more actions will have to be taken.


3. The advert begins with a man in work but suddenly a crane attaches to his mouth. This is shown to look pretty violent as you can see the hook through his mouth. Then he is dragged across the floor at an extremely fast pace. While the man yells in pain as he does not know what is going on. The people around him in the office do not notice to suggest it is all in his head. He finally stops then takes out a cigarette to smoke which slows down the advert. This is to represent the type of craving a cigarette.


4. On one hand this advert should be banned as it is an extremely frightening advert as you suddenly feel the shock of the hook connected through his mouth and pulled at a frantic rate. This definitely goes against the conventions of a TV advert as usually the audience may expect a joke but this goes completely the other way. The main reason the advert would be banned is because of the pulling by the hook on the mouth which can even make the audience feel painful. Also the advert was played to where children could have seen it and this will cause real horror to them compared to adults and they may not even know it is actually an advert. This is why now there is a cut off time of 9pm where different types of adverts are played than during the day.


5.On the other hand this advert is important to targeting smokers and this will shock them more than any other TV advert about smoking. This is what the aim of a smoking advert is. Also if the advert was played in the evening it would not have been as controversial. Another point is to represent the true power of the smoking addiction shown by the imagery of the fish hook pulling. So this advert is actually facing the truth and just explaining the causes will not be as powerful as the audience members already know the causes and will not listen but if is this is played the audience will listen more and may no longer feel comfortable smoking is addiction is like the fish hook.


6. The main complaints for the advert were for the children as it seen as "harmful" for them. There were also poster adverts which had not near as many for the TV advert as many more children would have been watching the television. The adverts actually caused "fear" and "distress" in children, this would be specifically the hook on the mouth which was the main cause of offense. This advert overall breached the advertising codes which was the main reason why it was banned.




7. I agree with both points of the argument, but however I look at the main purpose of the advert which was to stop smokers smoking and no advert before would have had nearly as much affect on the audience until now. Also this may even persuade children to not smoke as they will imagine the hook and relate that to smoking so will more likely say no if persuaded by peers to smoke. Another point is that the advert was aimed to adults in the first place so the advert should have only been played at late times so children no not see it. Because in the advertising codes it breaches, causing offense to children and that is it so if it is only available to adults it does go against the rules of ASA  and can be shown.




8.
To summarise the adverts is important to stop smoking and adverts like this should be shown, such as drink driving which is in the similar demographic. Next the advert would have not been controversial if it was available for children and would have never breached the advertising codes. If it does not it can not be banned officially, also this type of advert should be shown to children as they need to be persuaded not to smoke as they can start from a young age. I do agree this advert is harmful to children so it should be amended to children.
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