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ADVERTISING.
ADVERTISING.
YOUR RIGHT TO CHOOSE.
The International Advertising Association (IAA), headquartered in New York, was founded in 1938 to champion
responsible marketing. The IAA, with members in over 40 countries, is a one-of-a-kind global partnership comprising
advertisers, media, advertising and public relations agencies, media companies, and academics. The IAA is a platform for
industry issues and is dedicated to protecting and advancing freedom of commercial speech, responsible advertising,
consumer choice, and the education of marketing professionals.
For more information please visit www.iaaglobal.org
INTRODUCTION
As the only global partnership of advertisers, agencies, media and
communications services, the IAA is able to speak with one voice on
behalf of our members and the industry. The IAA has undertaken
large pro-bono communications programs before most notably
Hopenhagen the IAAs climate change initiative for the United Nations
COP 15, which was the largest ever initiative of its kind.
FARIS ABOUHAMAD
IAA CHAIRMAN &
WORLD PRESIDENT
The new IAA Case For Advertising campaign focuses on many of the
core benefits that are deeply rooted in marketing communications
that advertising promotes choice; educates; informs; encourages
innovation; creates jobs; supports the arts, entertainment and sports;
and contributes to the costs of providing news and information.
The campaign focus is for consumers and governments to understand
the value of advertising in its many forms, including sponsored content.
It comes at a time when the ad industry is under ever greater scrutiny by
governments and policy makers and often on the defensive.
What advertising provides - over and above any specific product or
service - is choice. To express that core concept the IAA developed the
central theme for the campaign:
Advertising. Your Right To Choose.
MICHAEL LEE
IAA MANAGING DIRECTOR
BACKGROUND
The advertising and marketing business, it seems, is destined to be on the receiving end of significant misperception.
The only sensible reaction to this harsh fact of marketing life is to regard it as yet one more communications task to be
professionally tackled. It is too easy to waste time and patience hoping that logic and good sense will always prevail. It
is time to recognize that not everyone wants them to prevail and act accordingly.
1. Freedom of personal expression is undeniable and not to be administrated la carte. That freedom is threatened
just as much as unwarranted censorship of commercial speech, as it is by restrictions on artistic, religious or
political expression. In all of these areas there is ample evidence that unrestricted access to relevant information
strengthens, rather than weakens, individual responsibility. That is the nature of self-education.
2. A free market economy is a necessary condition of prosperity in modern markets. Consumers have to be
sufficiently informed to make intelligent choices.
3. To be properly informed a consumer needs advertising. Informed choices are based on information. Advertising
in its broadest sense is the vital conduit for that information between producer and consumer.
4. Advertising = Consumer Choice. Knowledge of the available options and the case for each of them makes choice
both possible and meaningful. Informed choice enriches consumer freedom.
5. The classic criticism that Advertising Makes People Buy What They Dont Need must be redefined and defended.
In commercial terms few may have been clamouring for innovations like fluoride toothpaste, cornflakes, digital
phones or instant coffee, but these products and many others like them have followed latent consumer needs on a
global scale.
6. Advertising or, put another way, commercial communication has provided the education needed to help
people decide what choices they might make. It has that in common with other fundamental human endeavours
like religion and politics.
7. Advertising is the true means of innovation. No marketer is going to spend time and money developing new
technology, if there is no way of communicating what has been achieved to consumers. Without the channel
of advertising to carry the information and provide the alternatives, innovation and improvement might not be
commercially affordable.
8. Every freedom requires intellectual consistency. If there is the freedom to enjoy religious, political or product
choice, there must be a corresponding freedom to explain and expound that choice. In our terms, if it is legal
to manufacture and market a product, it must be possible to, within responsible limits, communicate what that
product is and what it does for the consumer.
9. Self-expression presupposes self-regulation. The argument for freedom must not lead us into license. There is no
suggestion that advertising has always been blameless. With it goes the need for self-regulation. It is the obligation
of the advertising industry to provide restraint and responsible advertising at every turn.
10.The Case of Advertising is not to do with defending the endangered species of advertising. It is to do with a
consumers right to know what is legally available to determine individual unfettered choice.
All of which should be self-evident and generally accepted in todays world though clearly not entirely. In many ways
the attacks on advertising are intensifying. And from a variety of different motivations, perhaps sensing moral or
political advantage can be gained from laying siege to an often undefended target.
And in truth, the defence of advertising and the freedom of commercial speech is needed more than ever and in a
coordinated, global, manner.
In 2014, during the IAAs 75th Anniversary, it seems appropriate to re-introduce The Case for Advertising. It is the IAAs
intention to have an impact, to make a difference, and to forcefully underscore Advertising. Your Right to Choose.
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