Ad professionals accused of hypocracy

The Bureau de Vérification de la Publicité (loosely: “Advertising Standards Watchdog”) is an industry body involved in setting voluntary standards over and above legal minimum requirements. Anybody can complain to it about any advertising and a recommendation may be issued. Given the importance of advertising in both encouraging consumption and contributing (via packaging and junk mail etc.) to the generation of waste it is inevitable that some environmental standards are expected from the sector.

It is not therefore surprising to hear that they have produced their own Chart for the Environment setting out new rules of conduct which take the findings of last year’s “Grenelle de l’Environnement” into account. The Chart was signed on the 11th of April 2008 by M. Jean-Pierre TEYSSIER, Chairman of the BVP, in the presence of M. Jean-Louis BORLOO, Minister of Ecology Energy Sustainable-Development and Planning, and M. Luc CHATEL, Secretary of State for Industry and Consumption.

This is a different Chart to the one established with ad agencies in the Aquitaine Region (this blog April 16 ) – a Chart for the Environment is fast becoming a necessary badge in the business world!

According to the press release the BVP’s Chart is based on three central engagements:

1. a reinforcement of the industry-imposed rules;
2. a systematic process of advice before diffusion whenever an environmental aspect is present;
3. an annual report on all advertising disseminated.

However, the signing of the Chart follows close on the heels of a controversy surrounding an advertising campaign intended to promote waste reduction at source by taking to task companies who make insufficient effort to reduce product packaging. This campaign was prepared by the inter-municipal waste management organisation of Châtelets, Brittany. The BVP issued recommendations against the campaign and was criticised for this by “the media”.

The BVP had already responded to these criticisms in a release on the 8th of April stating among other things that they were advising the advertiser on points of law: it is illegal in France to openly criticise a brand or an industry as such in an advert. Apparently some of the consumer items in the adverts initially proposed were too recognisable! According to the BVP the ads were able to be diffused after certain changes had been made. 

The BVP also took the opportunity to raise the question of accuracy for certain claims made in favour of the environmental benefits of certain practices: for example drinking tap water rather than bottled water. The bottled water/tap water debate in France has yet to be fully staged; for now this area is full of contradictions!