CMA’s Hon. CEO, Barbara Biggins OAM CF, explains why the AANA must listen to community concerns about scary content

Advertisements with scary images can stay with a child, causing sleep disturbances and ongoing unnecessary fears and anxieties. These impacts are not trivial (see this issue’s Editorial writer, Joanne Cantor’s, extensive body of work, and also Fear In front of the screen). On an ongoing basis, CMA receives emails and phone calls from citizens who’ve seen scary images on billboards where children often go, or whose children have been terrified by images in movie trailers. For example, email received 3/10/2023:

“Inappropriate scary advertising of The Exorcist film at 8:50pm channel 7 free to air during My Kitchen Rules semi final. (Monday 2nd October). My 7 year old could not forget the images and I needed to sleep with her and escort her everywhere in the house after that. It was a shock to see this ad and no warning so we could protect her.”

The crux of the problem is that the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA), whose Code of Ethics cover content in ads, has no provision that covers scariness. This needs to change, but opportunities to argue for change usually only happen at the AANA’s approx. 5 year reviews. CMA argued for this change in its submission to the AANA’s 2019 review. But maybe a new opportunity has opened up.

The Ad Standards Board (the AANA’s community panel which reviews complaints about ads in any media) has been celebrating “25 years of world class ad standards”. And it has launched a new campaign to increase awareness of its role in “giving a voice to community concerns about advertising”.

Now, the Ad Standards campaign sounds good, but a major problem is that Ad Standards can only judge complaints about ads in terms of whether these infringe the AANA’s current Codes. If the complaint is about an ad that doesn’t infringe a Code, it has to be dismissed. So even if viewers complain about scary ads, their complaints are doomed to fail.

The Code has a provision about violence and threat associated with violence (2.3) . But not all scary content is violent. Furthermore, even violent ads might be passed because the content of those ads is judged as okay if in the context of promoting a violent movie! (See here, here and here.)

Context is one thing in a full-length movie – but what’s the “context” for a 30 second trailer shown during a family program?

So, there’s work to do if we want to see change that benefits families and children.

Ad Standards’ Executive Director, Richard Bean, has said that Ad Standards is leveraging the power of advertising to remind Australians about its crucial function. He says “Advertising wields substantial influence in shaping public perceptions and consumer decisions. With that influence comes a responsibility to protect the community from potentially harmful or offensive content … Listening to concerns and cultivating responsible, respectful advertising practices is at the core of our operations.”

While this sounds like an invitation to tell Ad Standards what you think, there might be a bit of a problem communicating with them. On their website there’s a complaint form, but this is for a complaint about a specific ad; there’s also a contact form which must not be used for complaints about advertising.

So our best advice is Contact CMA. Let us be your conduit to the AANA and to Ad Standards for stating your concerns about scary ads.