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| Cheer the end of sexist ads. But what about the Brexit and NHS lies? | Cheer the end of sexist ads. But what about the Brexit and NHS lies? |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| So here we are in the dystopian present, unable to agree on almost anything that really matters. Once, it felt as if there was a wide, public space where most people could broadly agree on what a better world would look like, and differed only in a polite and manageable way on how to get there. And if that is a bit of rose-tinted hindsight, at least it was accepted that a diverse and gender-blind world where talent prospered was an objective for which everyone could strive. And it wouldn’t include the president of the United States greeting the wife of the French president by telling her she was in great shape. | So here we are in the dystopian present, unable to agree on almost anything that really matters. Once, it felt as if there was a wide, public space where most people could broadly agree on what a better world would look like, and differed only in a polite and manageable way on how to get there. And if that is a bit of rose-tinted hindsight, at least it was accepted that a diverse and gender-blind world where talent prospered was an objective for which everyone could strive. And it wouldn’t include the president of the United States greeting the wife of the French president by telling her she was in great shape. |
| There are many explanations for the loss of the collective. It is not all bad: a homogeneous world can exclude as much as it includes. Yet the erosion of common purpose – which Daniel Barenboim lamented in a heartfelt unscripted speech at the end of Sunday night’s prom – is one of the great casualties not only of the Brexit vote, but of the digital banquet of delights that social media provides. | There are many explanations for the loss of the collective. It is not all bad: a homogeneous world can exclude as much as it includes. Yet the erosion of common purpose – which Daniel Barenboim lamented in a heartfelt unscripted speech at the end of Sunday night’s prom – is one of the great casualties not only of the Brexit vote, but of the digital banquet of delights that social media provides. |
| There are common institutions that still cling on above the fractious masses. The royals survive, quietly modifying their behaviour and preparing for the succession. There is the BBC – which publishes talent salaries on Wednesday, the upshot of another attempt by government to extend control – beleaguered and bloodied, but still there. And in a dark and little-watched corner, there is the Advertising Standards Authority. | There are common institutions that still cling on above the fractious masses. The royals survive, quietly modifying their behaviour and preparing for the succession. There is the BBC – which publishes talent salaries on Wednesday, the upshot of another attempt by government to extend control – beleaguered and bloodied, but still there. And in a dark and little-watched corner, there is the Advertising Standards Authority. |
| The ASA is an institution from a kinder and gentler age: it was established in 1961 as an industry effort to avert the threat of statutory controls on advertising. Yet its founding notion reflects the prevailing spirit of a statist age: it believes that there are nationally acceptable and discoverable standards about what good and bad messaging looks like. In a world hostile to regulation, where it often feels as if marketing is everything, the ASA’s UK-wide reach as arbiter of marketing’s limits is unexpectedly emerging as a beacon of liberal values. | The ASA is an institution from a kinder and gentler age: it was established in 1961 as an industry effort to avert the threat of statutory controls on advertising. Yet its founding notion reflects the prevailing spirit of a statist age: it believes that there are nationally acceptable and discoverable standards about what good and bad messaging looks like. In a world hostile to regulation, where it often feels as if marketing is everything, the ASA’s UK-wide reach as arbiter of marketing’s limits is unexpectedly emerging as a beacon of liberal values. |
| It is also a regulator in an age when market purists claim that, in the huge diversity facilitated by social media, there is so much scope for brands to respond to their audience directly that there is no need for some central agency of direction and control. Young people are media literate, and they have clear ideas about what is acceptable and desirable that advertisers (and the brands for whom they work) breach at their own risk. | It is also a regulator in an age when market purists claim that, in the huge diversity facilitated by social media, there is so much scope for brands to respond to their audience directly that there is no need for some central agency of direction and control. Young people are media literate, and they have clear ideas about what is acceptable and desirable that advertisers (and the brands for whom they work) breach at their own risk. |
| But as the “beach body ready” ad row showed, brands are always testing the boundaries. In that case, a poster campaign by a food replacement product featured a thin model in a provocative pose. There were 400 complaints to the ASA and a petition signed by 70,000 people criticising the way that it objectified women. The ASA stopped it being used again. | But as the “beach body ready” ad row showed, brands are always testing the boundaries. In that case, a poster campaign by a food replacement product featured a thin model in a provocative pose. There were 400 complaints to the ASA and a petition signed by 70,000 people criticising the way that it objectified women. The ASA stopped it being used again. |
| Advertising treads that small space that exists between leading and following. That means it recognises and responds to trends as well as creating them. It would be dead if it did not closely mirror its target audience’s ideas of desirability. Yet it also remains an insidious shaper of social standards. That gives the ASA a unique role, setting and guarding the standards that it thinks are valued by society, however diverse and fragmented that society appears to be. | Advertising treads that small space that exists between leading and following. That means it recognises and responds to trends as well as creating them. It would be dead if it did not closely mirror its target audience’s ideas of desirability. Yet it also remains an insidious shaper of social standards. That gives the ASA a unique role, setting and guarding the standards that it thinks are valued by society, however diverse and fragmented that society appears to be. |
| That’s why the ASA’s motherhood and apple pie report on gender stereotypes this week matters more than it seems. In Depictions, Perceptions and Harms, researchers asked a cross-section of people what they considered was acceptable and what was not, and now it has drawn up new recommendations to reflect their findings. So, no more women obsessed by domestic hygiene or having a laugh at men doing the hoovering. But also aggressive policing of ads that objectify, or sexualise, or promote unhealthy body images. | That’s why the ASA’s motherhood and apple pie report on gender stereotypes this week matters more than it seems. In Depictions, Perceptions and Harms, researchers asked a cross-section of people what they considered was acceptable and what was not, and now it has drawn up new recommendations to reflect their findings. So, no more women obsessed by domestic hygiene or having a laugh at men doing the hoovering. But also aggressive policing of ads that objectify, or sexualise, or promote unhealthy body images. |
| Hardly radical. It would be wildly off target to suppose the ASA actually cares very much about promoting positive images of women. If it did, it wouldn’t have OK’d the latest ad by the perpetrators of the beach body ready campaign, featuring Khloe Kardashian. Nor is it interested in more subtle questions about the wider implications of the way men and women are represented. It has nothing to say, for example, about the increasing segmentation of the market that leads to more and more extreme subliminal messaging dividing boys from girls and forcing each into a narrow perception of the obligations of their gender. There is a tension between what advertisers are selling and what the regulators feel able to police. | Hardly radical. It would be wildly off target to suppose the ASA actually cares very much about promoting positive images of women. If it did, it wouldn’t have OK’d the latest ad by the perpetrators of the beach body ready campaign, featuring Khloe Kardashian. Nor is it interested in more subtle questions about the wider implications of the way men and women are represented. It has nothing to say, for example, about the increasing segmentation of the market that leads to more and more extreme subliminal messaging dividing boys from girls and forcing each into a narrow perception of the obligations of their gender. There is a tension between what advertisers are selling and what the regulators feel able to police. |
| All the same, at the margins, the ASA can still defend core values. That makes what it cannot do the more ridiculous: it is powerless to address the real abuses that shape daily life. It was helpless in the face of blatant lies about Brexit and the NHS, despite hundreds of complaints and online petitions, because political advertising is entirely uncontrolled by any public body. It has only limited powers to intervene to ban ads for fast food before a watershed, or stop advertising of sugary drinks near schools. | All the same, at the margins, the ASA can still defend core values. That makes what it cannot do the more ridiculous: it is powerless to address the real abuses that shape daily life. It was helpless in the face of blatant lies about Brexit and the NHS, despite hundreds of complaints and online petitions, because political advertising is entirely uncontrolled by any public body. It has only limited powers to intervene to ban ads for fast food before a watershed, or stop advertising of sugary drinks near schools. |
| Every defender of shared space is welcome. Every blow against over-sexualised imagery or gender segregation should be cheered. But remember the gender pay gap is still 19%, and wider still for black and minority ethnic women . And even if, as the chancellor was supposed to have said, women can drive trains, 95% of the people who get the job are still men. | Every defender of shared space is welcome. Every blow against over-sexualised imagery or gender segregation should be cheered. But remember the gender pay gap is still 19%, and wider still for black and minority ethnic women . And even if, as the chancellor was supposed to have said, women can drive trains, 95% of the people who get the job are still men. |
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