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APEC heads of state endorse advertising self-regulation
26/11/2014
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On 11 November in Beijing, the Heads of State of the 21 APEC economies endorsed an action agenda on advertising, which promotes advertising self-regulation across the region.
The 2014 Leaders' Declaration, dubbed “the Beijing Agenda for an Integrated, Innovative and Interconnected Asia-Pacific” officially states that “[APEC countries] endorse the APEC Action Agenda on Advertising Standards and Practice Development to promote alignment of advertising standards and reduce the cost of doing business across the region”.
By creating clear industry standards and more transparent processes for the approval and airing of advertising content and giving industry a greater stake in policing itself, APEC would make it less costly for local companies to bring products to market and simpler for foreign companies to ensure compliance with local standards. All this would likely lead to increased trade and competition and higher advertising spend, which APEC knows to be intrinsically correlated to economic growth.
The meeting was a follow-up to APEC's Senior Official Meeting held in August at which the WFA chaired a panel debate on advertising code development.
The APEC Action Agenda recognizes the role of advertising and endorses the development of self-regulatory industry codes. It recommends APEC members to reflect the following principles in their advertising regulatory regimes:
The Action Agenda includes number of recommended specific actions.
Governments are urged to “increase their support for efforts of advertising self-regulation” and to “actively explore specific ways to realise advertising self-regulation, should enhance communication and cooperation in terms of organisational structure, process design and performance management, and should endeavour to realise the significant industry role in self-regulation and extensive social influence of advertising self-regulatory practice."
Industry associations “are expected to actively participate in advertising self-regulatory practice. While raising awareness and capacity of self-regulation, they should play their role in guiding and rectifying their members' advertising practice.”
Advertisers are to play a leading role “as the initiator, investor and drivers of brand advertising campaigns, advertisers should practice corporate social responsibility and actively promote responsible advertising. Brand owners and their representative organisations should, therefore, assume primary responsibility for advertising communications and industry self-regulatory practice.”
As a follow up to the declaration, 2015 will be a busy year with four very different tasks:
For more background information, read here or contact Will Gilroy at [email protected]
Sign up to monthly WFA news
The 2014 Leaders' Declaration, dubbed “the Beijing Agenda for an Integrated, Innovative and Interconnected Asia-Pacific” officially states that “[APEC countries] endorse the APEC Action Agenda on Advertising Standards and Practice Development to promote alignment of advertising standards and reduce the cost of doing business across the region”.
By creating clear industry standards and more transparent processes for the approval and airing of advertising content and giving industry a greater stake in policing itself, APEC would make it less costly for local companies to bring products to market and simpler for foreign companies to ensure compliance with local standards. All this would likely lead to increased trade and competition and higher advertising spend, which APEC knows to be intrinsically correlated to economic growth.
The meeting was a follow-up to APEC's Senior Official Meeting held in August at which the WFA chaired a panel debate on advertising code development.
The APEC Action Agenda recognizes the role of advertising and endorses the development of self-regulatory industry codes. It recommends APEC members to reflect the following principles in their advertising regulatory regimes:
- 1. Be legal, decent, honest and truthful.
- 2. Conform to the principles of fair competition, as generally accepted in business. Advertisers should respect intellectual property rights, and the legitimate rights of brand holders and advertising agencies.
- 3. Respect the cultural, legal, and economic context of each individual APEC economy.
- 4. Give special care in advertising practice directed towards or featuring children or young people. Advertisements targeting, or portraying, children shall not contain anything that will lead to physical and mental harm to them and shall not take advantage of their potential vulnerability or credulity.
- 5. Advertising should not undermine healthy and active lifestyles or healthy balanced diets.
- 6. Advertising should take particular care to ensure truthfulness and integrity in relation to environmental claims.
- 7. Respect and protect personal privacy consistent with the APEC Privacy Framework and Cross Border Privacy Rules.
- 8. Comply closely with regional laws and regulations, industry standards and ethics.
- 9. Facilitate, rather than impede, trade and investment in the region.
The Action Agenda includes number of recommended specific actions.
Governments are urged to “increase their support for efforts of advertising self-regulation” and to “actively explore specific ways to realise advertising self-regulation, should enhance communication and cooperation in terms of organisational structure, process design and performance management, and should endeavour to realise the significant industry role in self-regulation and extensive social influence of advertising self-regulatory practice."
Industry associations “are expected to actively participate in advertising self-regulatory practice. While raising awareness and capacity of self-regulation, they should play their role in guiding and rectifying their members' advertising practice.”
Advertisers are to play a leading role “as the initiator, investor and drivers of brand advertising campaigns, advertisers should practice corporate social responsibility and actively promote responsible advertising. Brand owners and their representative organisations should, therefore, assume primary responsibility for advertising communications and industry self-regulatory practice.”
As a follow up to the declaration, 2015 will be a busy year with four very different tasks:
- Develop principles in 2015 for APEC economies to use in developing their advertising and self-regulatory regimes;
- Develop and deliver mentoring and capacity building programs in 2015 that aim to help economies adopt these principles;
- Develop an advertising regulatory checklist in 2015 that details key elements of a regulatory framework that facilitates trade and investment and protects consumers; and
- Build public awareness programs of available consumer policy tools, including self-regulatory organizations (SROs) for roll out in 2015-2017.
For more background information, read here or contact Will Gilroy at [email protected]
Sign up to monthly WFA news
