What you need to know:

• Ad Standards, the official body that handles complaints about advertising, turned 25 this month. Heavyweight CMOs and agency leads lauded the watchdog's progress but flagged gaps in its teeth.
• Dentsu Creative's Kirsty Muddle reckons influencer marketing is a major enforcement grey area.
• Arnott's Group's Jenni Dill says: "We've seen a greater diversity of opinion, gender, race, language, religious beliefs on that panel now than there ever has been. This means we are getting better quality decisions and well rounded consideration on these decisions.”
• Nestle's Martin Brown wants better guidance around greenwashing so brands have the confidence to share their CSR initiatives without falling foul of regulators.
• Dee Madigan stole the show at Ad Standards anniversary celebration, lashing "digital charlatans", brand storytellers, data kings, influencers and others, while praising the evolution of advertising norms.
• Sportsbet is currently behind the most complained about ad of all time – and has form, with two entries in the Ad Standards top ten. Though only two of those 'offenders' had their complaints upheld. The rest were cleared to keep running.

Skirting the law

Senior marketers have heralded Australia’s Ad Standards regime as ‘world class’ but want to see tougher guidelines on influencer marketing and greenwashing. 

Ad Standards – the body that deals with community complaints of ads – recently celebrated 25 years since its formation and launched a new awareness campaign to encourage the public to use the complaints body (see video below). 

A room full of senior marketers, community panellists and guests gathered in Sydney to launch the campaign and reminisce over how the advertising complaints process has evolved over time.

In a punchy keynote speech, Campaign Edge Executive Creative Director Dee Madigan took no prisoners.  She used a 1990s ad for pantyhose brand Razzamatazz (see video below) to illustrate just how far ad standards have evolved since the regulator was officially launched. 

“I want you to picture this: there’s a woman walking along the street and a car nearly hits her. And the guy hops out of the car and grabs a video camera, and he holds it down low and starts following her through the streets trying to get a shot up her skirt. And the wind blows and her skirt goes up and he gets the shot and smiles. And we hear ‘Uh oh, Razzamatazz’. Literally that is what happened…extraordinary because I think he broke [several laws].”

After dropping a few c-bombs to illustrate how acceptable language norms have shifted, she added: “So things change, words change, social norms change and advertising – thank god – has changed. If my kids congratulated me for buying margarine they’d never get fed again.

"So what has changed in the nearly 30 years I've been in advertising? Period bloodstock stopped being blue, sex still sells but sexism is not ok and if you don't know the difference between the two then stop writing ads."

‘A special place in hell’

Perhaps Madigan’s most acerbic observations were saved for the “charlatans who arrived soon after the digital natives”. 

“They were called digital experts and would say, ‘You need to resource every platform and do content specific to each platform. I know because I'm a platform expert. The video can’t be longer than two seconds on this platform. I know because I'm a platform expert. No point shooting a bigger one, they're just going to be watching it on tight portrait, only I know – I’m a platform expert’.

“But did your sales go through the roof because of it? No, how weird because I would have thought six seconds would be a really good amount of time to sell a brand.”

Madigan took aim at influencers, arguing that "companies are still trying to work out just whose brand influencers were building”. She followed with a serve for brand storytellers, who exist in “a special place in hell”; before the slicing and dicing “data kings”.

Yet Madigan said she has never been more excited about the advertising industry because “now that the initial excitement of the internet is going down, the charlatans are slowly being run out of town”.

“Marketers are realising something important, all of the interwebs are simply a conduit between you and your audience,” she added. “And good content gets shared across platforms: I'm just as likely to see a TikTok video on Facebook, and increasingly, people are watching it on big screen TVs. Despite what I was told at AWARD school, TV ads are not dead.“

100k complaints and counting

Ad Standards was established by the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) to independently administer the advertising industry codes and to handle community complaints. It is funded by advertisers and agency groups.

In 25 years, the body has handled close to 100,000 complaints and made decisions for more than 10,000 ads. What began life as the Advertising Standards Board with 12 members, including author Thomas Keneally, cricketer Geoff Lawson and film critic Margaret Pomeranz, has evolved to a 25-member community panel that represents different sections and demographics of Australia's community.

Arnott's Group CMO Jenni Dill, who is on the AANA Board, told Mi3 the community panel at the heart of advertising’s complaints system helps marketers and their agency partners create work that resonates with diverse Australian audiences.

“We've seen a greater diversity of opinion, gender, race, language, religious beliefs on that panel now than there ever has been. And this means we are getting better quality decisions and well rounded consideration on these decisions,” Dill said.

“These rulings help shape the work you are doing in the future. Nobody wants to get their ad pulled off air… you want to do great work that can help drive your brand and business forward.”

Marking our own homework?

Dentsu Creative CEO Kirsty Muddle batted away any perceptions that because the Ad Standards regime is self-regulatory, it lacks independence, arguing: “The advertiser is very separate from the community panel. The community voice is upholding and keeping us accountable to those standards, we are not marking our own homework.”

This was a point drummed home by panel members that spoke to Mi3 at the event; they each held jobs outside of the advertising industry, represented vastly different communities, and brought different perspectives to how advertising impacts Australian society.

Martin Brown, Nestlé Oceania GM, Coffee & Dairy ANZ, told Mi3 the evolution of Ad Standards and the AANA’s code of ethics had made it easier for brands to swim in the regulatory lanes, whereas 20 years ago advertisers often played “catch up” to regulation.

“Many advertisers have actually got more progressive internal policies about advertising (than the code) in how they want to reflect and interact with the community in advertising ... it’s important for us to build trust and loyalty,” he said. 

Blindspots: influencers, 'greenhush'

On the topic of how Ad Standards and the AANA’s Code of Ethics could improve – senior marketers and creatives diverged between reining in cowboys in digital marketing and CSR.

Brown would like to see more guidance on how brands can advertise and communicate their sustainability and climate change initiatives, arguing that there is a better balance to be struck between rewarding brands that make legitimate environmental claims and punishing those that make spurious claims, also known as greenwashing.

He is alluding to a recent clampdown by the ACCC on greenwashing that has led to a phenomenon known as ‘greenhushing’, where companies avoid making green claims due to the risk of being called out. AANA CEO Josh Faulks earlier this year said the crackdown has left brands "terrified" of being probed.

“It's a very complex field in terms of defining accuracy and the ease of assessment of that. And it's a low trust environment,” said Brown. “But it's critical we get this right, because those businesses that are investing billions of dollars in a critical transition for humanity need to have a level playing field that they can be rewarded through their through brands getting greater loyalty for the investments they're making.”

Although the AANA’s Code of Ethics applies to all forms of digital marketing, Arnott’s Group's Dill and Dentsu Creative's Muddle agreed influencer marketing is a blindspot in the current guidelines and urgently needs addressing.

“The ad standards team have got to work really hard to keep up with how the media landscape is shifting to make sure that we can have the right influence over the influencers in particular,” Dill said. “It’s an area where we really need to make sure that we continue to raise the standards.”

Muddle added: “There's so much technology out there, we have a grey area in the interpretation (of the code) and how that applies to the behaviour of influencers." She said Madigan's influencer observations were on the money.

The Ad Standards TV commercial

Top 10 most complained about ads over the past 25 years 

1. Sportsbet

Outcome: Upheld; Complaints: 791

2. Asaleo Care – Libra 

Outcome: Dismissed Complaints: 738

3. iSelect

Outcome: Upheld; Complaints: 716

4. Ashley Madison - Avid Life

Outcome: Dismissed; Complaints: 641

5. Ultra Tune Australia

Outcome: Dismissed; Complaints: 416

6. Ultra Tune Australia

Outcome: Dismissed; Complaints: 390

7. Meat & Livestock Australia

Outcome: Dismissed; Complaints: 375

8. Sportsbet

Outcome: Dismissed; Complaints: 366

9. Nando's Australia

Outcomes: Dismissed; Complaints: 359

10. WC Savage

Outcomes: Dismissed; Complaints: 350