The authorisation of advertising material in the public domain is something that needs more discussion.  For most ad campaigns the industry sets high standards in terms of producing communication material that meets community expectations in terms of honesty and accuracy.  Recently we produced a series of ads where we used actors to make a humorous point about wanting to buy furniture products because they couldn’t wait.  The ad also featured retail priced products. Quite rightly we went through the usual CAD mechanisms to ensure we corroborated our claims as has been the norm in Australia for the time I have been in advertising.  However, what really horrified me was that we had to include in the commercial a small super that the actors who appeared were paid.  What is going on?  Surely community expectations in relation to our creative execution would realise that the people who appeared were not real customers, particularly as in the series of ads produced the situations were highly amusing and ‘tongue in cheek’  to make a point.  The application of this approach does not seem to be consistently applied across other categories.

A case in point.  Recently the Federal Water Minister, Tanya Plibersek’s bureaucrats were called to account in Senate estimates for an ad campaign portraying the government as ‘Saving the Murray Darling Basin’ in a $12 million television campaign.  After a barrage of questions, Minister Plibersek’s department admitted that the main featured image was computer generated and that it was used in an attempt to show what a dry Murray Basin would like.  After further questioning the departmental secretary admitted that there were no real images that matched the scenario they were looking for, prompting the use of computer-generated imagery (CGI).  Interestingly, the point was made at the Senate hearing that the Murray River had never run dry event even during the millennium drought.  Furthermore, the department admitted that the campaign included an image of an orange orchard in Turkey, no less.

Whatever your views on the management of water in the Murray Basin one thing is for certain there is something wrong with the way this ad was allowed to be shown.  Was there scrutiny over the content? Did anyone check that what was being depicted was true and honest?

Government and political advertising need to be subject to the same standards as commercial advertising.  If not change the rules and give private enterprise the same leeway that government advertising gets, with little scrutiny.