Comments on: Jack, of "in the Box" Fame, Needs Warning Label in England, France

By: France to regulate Photoshopped pics?

France to regulate Photoshopped pics? — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:17:54 +0000

[...] that unrealistic body images can have on adolescents." More: Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica; Ken at Popehat (UK's Liberal Democrats promote similar ban for some [...]

By: linus

linus — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:38:11 +0000

"[We] don't like bans". Heh. Define the word "like" in that proposition. I don't think it means what you are intending it to mean.

By: Transplanted Lawyer

Transplanted Lawyer — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:43:52 +0000

Mippy — this is very interesting to me (I'm being quite sincere when I say that). Where might I look to learn more about how British advertising self-regulates?

By: Transplanted Lawyer

Transplanted Lawyer — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:42:36 +0000

See, this is what happens when your country doesn't have something like the First Amendment (or fails to take such a thing seriously): you stop seeing attractive women in advertisements, and laws written to protect people of lower-than-baseline intelligence lower the baseline.

By: mippy

mippy — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:39:15 +0000

Mippy is female.
Beer can't be advertised with sexy ladies – that would be alcohol as aid to sexual success (Google the BCAP television code)

Those aren't e ven 'proposed changes', just a politicians getting press. The UK ad industry is self regulating, not by Govt – my company is an NGO. We're critical of advertising every day….q

By: Charles

Charles — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:16:09 +0000

Apparently these legislators believe that women, and girls, are stupid creatures who credit advertising messages uncritically.

They are. They most certainly are. Men and boys, too. The entirety of modern advertising rests on the premise that the audience are idiots. Whether this is sufficient grounds for legislation is a different question but it is true nonetheless.

I believe Mippy's first point was that the regulation is a basic truth-in-advertising law; that you can't misrepresent the efficacy of your product. Making exaggerated claims about how a product works is different in kind from the metaphorical promises made by sultry ladies drinking cheap beer. He is wrong, of course, because he must not have clicked the link and doesn't realize that the focus of your post is the newly proposed rules rather than the ones he is currently enforcing.

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:33:50 +0000

Mippy, just because I don't like government regulating advertising subtext doesn't mean I don't think there is subtext. I'm not sure why women get airbrushed in advertisements if it isn't to make them look like some fantasy. Fantasy sells. I don't want the government regulating it. But I teach my kids to deconstruct advertising and not trust it. And the Thatcher joke was not as sophisticated as you think it was.

By: Mippy

Mippy — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:27:43 +0000

Oh – Thatcher was a Conservative politician. Very much not a liberal democrat. They tend to have the best looking MPs, though.

By: Mippy

Mippy — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:27:00 +0000

I work in TV advertising regulation and, while I like a lot of stuff on this here site, this article is facetious at best. We don't care about body image and airbrushing – unless it's suggesting that that mascara will make your lashes look like the falsies on screen, or if a diet formula is advertised where teens might see it. Might be best to have a look at the ASA, BCAP and Clearcast websites to get a handle on what we do allow, rather than humorously speculating.