It’s all about the main message, stoopid
Time and again ISPs and telcos pump out advertisements that upset the ACCC and other regulators. Time and again the advertisers are astonished that anyone could be unhappy about their adverts.
It’s time the industry learned about the ‘main message’ rule.
The ‘main message’ rule
In recent years, consumer protection regulators have decided that:
- The modern world moves fast.
- People have information coming from every direction.
- So messages have to be very clear, or people miss them.
- If an advert has a loud and clear ‘main message’ plus a small print ‘clarification’, people will only take in the main message.
- So if the main message isn’t the whole story, and the ‘clarifications’ tell a different story, the advert is misleading.
Following on from that, we can state the ‘main message’ rule several different ways. Take your pick.
1. The main message of an advert must be true by itself. You can’t rely on clarifications to make it true.
2. Small print doesn’t save a misleading headline claim.
3. Fast talking doesn’t work doesn’t save a misleading headline claim.
4. Claiming ‘everybody knows how it works’ doesn’t save a misleading headline claim.
5. You’re stuck with your main message.
An example of the ‘main message’ rule at work
This one’s topical as I write. TMG Asia Pacific Pty Ltd is being sued by the ACCC for misleading and deceptive conduct in relation to premium mobile services.
But two years ago, TMG was taken to task in New Zealand’s Advertising Standards Complaints Board, for unethical advertising.
Here’s the key part of the Board’s decision:
The Board agreed that key information to inform consumers prior to entering the competition had physically been included in the advertisement.
However, as in previous decisions, the Board reiterated that care had to be taken with the use of fine print in relation to television advertisements and that the fact that the information was part of an advertisement, did not guarantee its readability.
The Complaints Board noted that a number of factors impacted on the readability of information on-screen, including font type and size and duration time. It also noted that images in any advertisement could often distract from key information provided on screen.
In this particular advertisement the Board noted that a key piece of information for consumers was that the minimum cost to play in the first round of the competition to win the prize was approximately $15.00. The Board noted that the voice-over at the start of the advertisement referred to a subscription cost of $3.00 and that in one set of fine print the $3.00 subscription cost is repeated and in another set of fine print the fact that there are 5 messages sent per month is recorded.
However, in the Board’s view, the inclusion of these three separate pieces of information in three different parts of the advertisement did not make clear the possible overall cost of the service to the consumer and it was likely that consumers may be misled. Therefore the advertisement was in breach of Rule 2 of the Code of Ethics.
Accordingly the Board ruled to uphold the complaint.
Summary
The ‘main message’ rule is becoming a foundation of telco and ISP advertising law. If the marketing team think that they’ve done a great job of telling the truth while keeping the nasties out of sight, they have probably broken the rule.
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