There is going to be some relief for small business with Alina Bain, the director of codes policy and regulatory affairs at the AANA, revealing to SmartCompany that the association is working on guidance along the lines of that issued recently by New Zealand’s Advertising Standards Authority.
“It’s an internal matter for the AANA, there are a couple of things we are looking at which are collective thinking from our members as to how to approach the social media space and we are collating that in terms of how often you should monitor social media and particular activity which will get you to monitor more carefully,” Bain says.
“Because it is such an evolving space it is not possible to think of each and every scenario,” she says.
Jolly says the work by the AANA in conjunction with its members means there is likely to be “less controversy” from large advertisers in relation to the use of social media.
Jolly says there is likely to be more guidance available soon on behaviour on social media for advertisers.
She says the ASB will work with the AANA on the guidance if needed and expects the guidelines to be released before Christmas.
“We will give guidance on what we think based on our understanding of the code and what we think is the type of material that comes within our jurisdiction,” Jolly says.
As the body which polices advertising and now social media, the ASB’s power is actually fairly limited.
“We operate a self-regulating system, which means there is no legislative underpinning or backup for ASB decisions,” says Jolly.
“The ultimate penalty is the requirement for an advertisement to be taken down, or if it has already ceased it can never be used again.”
Jolly says this is “quite a significant cost” for most advertisers along with the publicity surrounding any decision.
“The other implication of a ban is very negative publicity, the naming and shaming is quite effective.”
Pattison told SmartCompany the problems with the ASB’s determinations did not stem so much from the penalty imposed but the outdated AANA code which the ASB uses.
“You are trying to deal with a very modern phenomenon with an advertising standard that is quite old and that is why we are getting the results we are getting. It is quite clear [the AANA code] is not meant to deal with these circumstances,” he says.
Pattison says the regulatory framework is not keeping up with developments in technology, which suggests what is needed is better guidance for business.
“I think we will get some guidance like New Zealand’s but what would be better still is to have a revision to the code, as it has been there since 1997. That was when there was web 1.0 with static webpages that companies put out to advertise their wares and we are now talking about user generated content which is really untouched by the code,” he says.
In New Zealand the Advertising Standards Authority has also warned in its guidance of the dangers of retweeting customer tweets (in case they are misleading) and requires people who are paid to tweet support for a product or service to add the #ad hashtag to make the endorsement obvious.
However, Jolly says the ASB is unlikely to follow the Kiwi lead in regulating paid tweets.
“We don’t have a role in saying how advertisers should be identifying themselves, we work from the other end, if someone says something is an advertisement and they are concerned about it,” she says.
“That is something that the industry will be doing some work around.”
Jolly says the ASB is also unlikely to follow the lead of America’s Federal Trade Commission, which requires that endorsements and testimonials on blogs and other social media must reflect the honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience of the endorser, and that endorsements may not contain any representations that would be deceptive, or could not be substantiated, if made directly by the advertiser.
When there is a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement, the FTC requires the connection is fully disclosed.
“The key for us is whether what is out there is in the control of the advertiser,” Jolly says.
“Whether someone can advertise or market something without identifying it is a paid conversation is not our concern, our concern is whether they are sexist or racist or promoting unsafe behaviour,” she says.
Cara Waters is a former SmartCompany editor. Previously, Cara was a senior reporter for the Financial Times’ website and worked for The Sunday Times in London.
