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Advertising is predominantly focused on selling the benefits, explicit or implicit, of the products or services of the entity paying the bill - not surprising.

The arguments of the basic free market model that is the basis of most, at least western, economies is that the various agents involved have full information on which they make their economic decisions and market choices.

For individuals that make up the consumer front, the rapid churning of products/brands and the often associated intense advertising blitzes on the various media do not fit well against this free market assumption that underlies the common expectation that free markets lead to optimal outcomes.

What can be done about this imbalance?

Who is the appropriate body to ensure that balanced information is readily accessible?

• Should consumers be considered totally responsible for getting their own balanced information?
• Should advertisers have some responsibility to ensure that consumers have balanced information?
• Should governments have this responsibility - whether by direct provision or by funding consumer information bodies or by imposing information obligations on advertisers?

What is the experience in various countries to date?

• Are there examples where advertising is regulated or counterbalanced to the point of redressing this imbalance?
• Are there examples where governments fund redressing of the information imbalance, and if so how is this put into place?

Contributors - jawbone

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written by jawbone, 12:28 27 Sep 09

In Australia, there is an Advertising Standards Bureau which coordinates an Advertising Standards Board and Advertising Claims Tribunal - see http://www.adstandards.com.au/. These bodies are controlled and funded by major national advertisers (a levy of 0.035% on gross media expenditure) - a self-regulation model. "The self-regulation system recognizes that advertisers share a common interest in promoting consumer confidence in and respect for general standards of advertising" (http://www.adstandards.com.au/pages/page13.asp 27/9/09). The ASB seems focused primarily on providing a mechanism for dealing with competitor disputes and with ads that infringe community standards. The closest the ASB gets to recognizing obligations towards ensuring balanced information is in Section 1.2 of the Australian Association of National Advertisers Code of Ethics which says "Advertising or Marketing Communications shall not be misleading or deceptive or be likely to mislead or deceive" (http://www.adstandards.com.au/...de_web.pdf). Unfortunately the Advertising Claims Tribunal is set up with a bias against any consumer complaints through the complainant needing to pay the costs of the Tribunal dealing with the complaint.

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written by jawbone, 13:22 27 Sep 09

In Australia, there is also the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) which administers the Trade Practices Act 1974 (see http://www.accc.gov.au). The Act (and matching legislation in each state and territory) makes it illegal for a business to:
> mislead or deceive you, or do something that is likely to mislead or deceive you
> make a false claim about the quality, standard, sponsorship, approval, price or benefits of a good or service.

Not sure how effective a complaint through this organization (apparently free) would be.

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