In a RAJAR week you’d be forgiven for missing the odd media story, but whilst we were all ploughing through the figures on Wednesday, Radiocentre announced some significant guidelines to reduce the terms and conditions necessary in certain radio ads, which can take up half the duration of the commercial and are estimated to cost the industry around £120 million a year. So, what does this mean for advertisers?
More Room For Creative
Whilst nobody would want to create situations where consumers are misled, it’s also in everybody’s interest; from the advertiser to the listener, to have radio commercials as creative/interesting/listenable as they can possibly be. At Maple Street, we’ve always believed an ad should feel like content to a station, something that sounds like it belongs, rather than an interruption. Put another way, it’s like a friend joining the conversation, and not that guy from the Sales Team who looks like he once killed a man with one thumb.
Greater Consistency
So, the news is welcome, but how surprised is anyone? In November 2018 we wrote an article on how a joint crusade from the European Commission, the Radiocentre, and a former MEP was taking on the issue of consumer protection. The fact that these new guidelines will be applicable across the UK and Europe (first time for making that distinction) would lead one to make some connection back to that campaign some fifteen months ago. Equally, many copywriters have felt a relaxing of the rules over recent times, with the advertisers rather than the administrators being the reluctant modifiers. That said, last February the ASA upheld a complaint against Motorama in relation to the clarity of third-party ownership – one of the very terms now considered superfluous. So, whilst one area of the industry has canvassed behind closed doors for change, another part has had to block opportunities for exploring how a shift in policy might be interpreted by the consumer.
The biggest win to come from this might be that by reducing what was once considered transparency of clauses on behalf of the advertiser, we now have more simplistic terms – and better still – more consistent guidelines when it comes to communicating with the consumer.
Naturally we end this article with a few ts&cs of our own and point out that some ads will still require certain conditions. For any questions with those, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team at: production@maplestreetcreative.co.uk.
