The Global Advertising Regulation Handbook

Mary Alice Shaver, Soontae An

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317456582
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Advertising is an important and visible component of marketing, competition, and consumer awareness. As many companies grow and expand to serve multinational audiences worldwide, there is a concomitant need to understand culture, customs and regulation in the world markets. Not only businesses but consumers and students as well need to understand the workings of advertising and its regulation in worldwide markets.This book is designed to fill this need for students and professionals. The book takes a thorough and critical view of the process in 21 countries, representing four continents of developed countries.An important feature of this handbook is the consistent, carefully plotted format of each chapter, facilitating easy access to key information. For each country, the chapters cover the following:

• form of government
• history of regulation along with current operating regulation systems
• route/manner in which cases are brought forward to regulating bodies
• advertising codes, if any, and how they work
• amount of money spent on advertising by year
• consumerism and its role in advertising
• specific regulation of advertising to children, health advertising and tobacco advertising
• sanctions and control of advertising found inadmissible
• position of commercial speech in country--if any

Countries included are Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, China/Hong Kong, Colombia, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United States, and the United Kingdom.Each chapter's contributing author is a known expert in advertising with a particular insight on that country's language, culture, and advertising industry.

PART I

NORTH AMERICA

CHAPTER 1

CANADA

SOONTAE AN

Canada is both a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy, with a federation of national, provincial, and territorial governments. Its administrative divisions consist of 10 provinces and three territories (CIA 2012). In most provinces, the legal system is based on English common law, while the French civil law system prevails in the eastern province of Quebec. The gross domestic product (GDP; purchasing power parity) is $1,279 trillion (2009 est.), the fifteenth in the world (CIA 2012). The population of Canada was estimated at 34,670,352 in 2012 (Statistics Canada 2012).

Canada is one of the most diverse countries in the world, with a rich ethnic composition that mirrors a multiplicity of origins: British Isles (28 percent); French (23 percent); other European (15 percent); Amerindian (2 percent); other mostly Asian, African, Arab (6 percent); and mixed background (26 percent). In terms of first language spoken, 58.2 percent are English speakers, 21.7 percent are French speakers, and 19 percent use nonofficial languages (Statistics Canada 2006). Reflecting its diversity, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio-Canada, the national public broadcaster, airs in both official languages and in eight aboriginal languages.

With two public television broadcasting networks, Canada has about 150 television stations, multichannel satellite and cable systems, and roughly 2,000 licensed radio stations (CIA 2012). Total advertising expenditures were $15.8 billion in 2004, $18.9 billion in 2007, and an estimated $23.3 billion in 2011. In 2007, telemarketing (23 percent) and television (18 percent) were the largest channels for advertising spending, while the Internet represented 7 percent (CMA 2007); four years later, the latter had doubled its spending, indicating its rising visibility (Martin 2012). Among Canada’s leading advertisers are Procter & Gamble, Bell Canada, Government of Canada, Provincial Government Lotteries, Rogers, Johnson & Johnson, General Motors, L’Oreal, Telus, and Ford (GroupM 2009).

The government of Canada has been one of the nation’s leading advertisers. In 2009–2010, the Government of Canada spent $136.3 million, $53.2 million of which went toward eight campaigns on initiatives for the Economic Action Plan and $24 million of which was spent on informational advertising pertaining to the H1N1 influenza pandemic. Specifically, Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) is contracting advertising services on behalf of various government institutions and maintains the Advertising Management Information System (AdMIS) to document government advertising activities (PWGSC 2012).

HISTORY OF ADVERTISING REGULATION

In 1957, the Canadian Advertising Advisory Board (CAAB) was founded by industry members to promote the ethical practice of advertising. The Canadian Code of Advertising Standards, the Canadian advertising industry’s principal instrument of self-regulation, was first published in 1963. It has been updated and now contains 14 clauses that set the criteria for acceptable advertising.

Given the two Canadian cultures, English and French, CAAB adopted its bilingual name—Bureau consultative de la publicité au Canada—in 1967. That same year, the Advertising Standards Council/Le Conseil des normes de la publicité was created to adjudicate consumers’ complaints. In 1972, CAAB started reviewing broadcast advertising aimed at children, and two years later, the Trade Dispute Procedure was launched.

In 1982, CAAB merged with the Advertising Standards Council and became the Canadian Advertising Foundation/La Fondation canadienne de la publicité (CAF/FCP). In 1997, CAF changed its name to Advertising Standards Canada/Les Normes canadiennes de la publicité (ASC/NCP). ASC works closely with its strategic partners, among them the Association of Canadian Advertisers, Canadian Association of Broadcasters, Concerned Children’s Advertisers, and Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. As Canada’s self-regulatory body for advertising practices, ASC administers the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards, the consumer complaint process, and preclearance services for five advertising categories: children’s, food/nonalcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages, consumer drugs, and cosmetics.

Advertising in Canada is highly regulated, with the federal Competition Act as its principal statute. The act prohibits false and misleading advertising and is implemented by the Competition Bureau of Canada. In addition, each province has its own consumer protection statutes to regulate false and misleading advertising. The Competition Act covers both criminal and civil offenses concerning advertising practices. Section 52 specifically describes criminal misleading advertising, and section 74.01 addresses civil misleading advertising.

COMMERCIAL SPEECH

The Canadian Bill of Rights was enacted in 1960. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which constitutionalized the freedom of expression, was adopted in 1982. Section 2(b) of the Charter states that “everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: … (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication (Government of Canada, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Constitution Act of 1982).

Section 1 of the Charter gives Canadian courts the power to balance guaranteed rights against other interests without necessarily restricting the substantive scope of the Charter provisions, thereby allowing the freedom of expression to remain broad (Gower 2005). That is, the expression under section 2(b) of the Charter embraces all content irrespective of meaning or message to be conveyed and includes conduct as long as the conduct conveys or attempts to convey a meaning (Alderson 1993). The Charter allows the Canadian courts to take a liberal approach in defining freedom of expression (Cameron 1990), compared to that of the United States, where the courts must first categorize the speech. For example, the Supreme Court of Canada has recognized picketing as a form of expression and at the same time did uphold an injunction against secondary picketing on the basis that it was a reasonable limit on the expression. In comparison, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld similar picketing regulations by distinguishing between speech and conduct (Gower 2005).

Specifically, in R. v. Oakes (1986), the Canadian Supreme Court set out guidelines regarding limitations on speech rights and freedoms. First, courts should determine whether the objective for restrictions is sufficiently important and the measures for the objective are proportional to the objective. To determine proportionality, the following criteria are considered: “whether the measures are rationally connected to the objective; the measures impair the guaranteed right as little as possible; and there is proportionality between the deleterious effects of the measures and their salutary effects” (Gower 2005, 38).

Following the 1982 adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the first commercial speech case was Ford v. Quebec (Attorney General) in 1988, concerning a French-only Quebec language law. While the official languages of Canada are French and English, Quebec enacted a law requiring all public signs, posters, and commercial advertising to appear in French only. In Ford, the Court held that protecting the French language and culture was indeed a substantial interest for Quebec, but the province failed to show that requiring French-only signs addressed the interest. There was no evidence showing that banning all English words would further the objective of protecting the French heritage. The regulation was declared unconstitutional.

The Canadian approach, with its built-in balancing, allows the Court to deal with each case in its own context (Gower 2005). For example, the Court upheld a complete ban on tobacco advertising toward children while striking down a complete ban on tobacco advertising for adults. That is, the Supreme Court of Canada invalidated a comprehensive ban on cigarette advertising in RJR-MacDonald Inc. v. Canada (Attorney General) (1995). Although the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the Tobacco Products Control Act as legal, it struck down the requirement that the health warnings be unattributed, stating such a requirement violated the right to free speech.

GOVERNMENT REGULATION

Competition Bureau

The Competition Bureau is a Canadian government agency promoting competitive markets and informed consumer choice. The bureau regulates misleading and deceptive advertising via the Competition Act, the Consumer Packaging and Labeling Act, the Precious Metals Marketing Act, and the Textile Labeling Act. As an example, the Competition Act specifically addresses: (a) deceptive notices of winning a prize; (b) false or misleading representations; (c) multilevel marketing and pyramid selling; (d) performance representations not based on adequate and proper tests; (e) price-related representations; (f) promotional contests; (g) misleading warranties and guaranties; and (h) untrue, misleading, or unauthorized use of tests and testimonials.

The Competition Bureau conducts its own investigations and receives and processes complaints. Consumers can submit a complaint against a company whose advertising practices may be in violation of any of the four aforementioned acts. If the bureau determines that a complaint warrants further investigation, its remedies include (a) public education, written opinions, information contacts, voluntary codes of conduct, written undertakings, and prohibition orders; (b) the legal authority with court authorization to search for and seize documents and other forms of evidence, to take sworn oral evidence, and to demand the production of documents and records; (c) the ability to refer criminal matters to the Attorney General of Canada, who then decides whether to prosecute before the courts; (d) the power to bring civil matters before the Competition Tribunal or other courts, depending on the issue; (e) the authority to make presentations and intervene on matters of competition policy before federal and provincial boards, tribunals, and commissions such as the Canadian Radio-Television...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I. North America
• Part II. South America
• Part III. The Nordic Countries
• Part IV. Other European Countries
• Part V. The Pacific Rim
• Part VI. GLobal Advertising Regulation
• Appendices
• Index
• About the Editors and Contributors