Media Studies: Advertising Activity

In the class we will look at some advertisements that people in the U.K. have complained about. Two of the advertisements are for alcoholic drinks, and two are for women's clothes. I will ask you to discuss issues such as:

What were people probably complaining about?
Would there be complaints about such advertisements in Japan? (Why, or why not?)
Should the Advertising Standards Authority agree with the complaints or not? (Why?)

I will also let you read what the actual complaints were, what the advertiser said in defence, and what the Advertising Standards Authority actually decided.

To prepare for this, you will have to read a few pages of The British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing. This gives the standards that advertisements must meet. For example, it explains what is meant by "legal, decent, honest and truthful". (See the textbook, pp.199-200). You can download the code from the 授業支援システム. It is listed as "CAP code edition 11".

The following parts of the code are relevant to the activity: pp. 7-9, from 2.1 to 11.1, and pp. 32-33, from 56.1-56.15. It would therefore be a good idea to print these parts so that you can refer to them during the class. BEFORE THE CLASS, YOU MUST READ AT LEAST 2.1~2.4, 5.1~5.3, 10.1, 11.1, 56.4~56.9, and 56.11~56.12. Do these rules seem reasonable to you? Do Japanese advertisements meet these criteria?

Before I show you the advertisements I will ask you to imagine the sort of advertisements that people might complain about. It would therefore be a good idea to think about this in advance. What sort of advertisements do you object to yourself? What sort of advertisements might other people object to? (I know that at least one of the advertisements that we will be looking at has appeared in Japan, but I do not know whether anyone objected to it.)