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Will the FCC Act?
Stealth Marketers Gone Wild
Diane
Farsetta
CounterPunch
September 24, 2008
One of my favorite critiques of our ad-saturated modern
world is in "Infinite Jest," the epic novel by
recently-departed author and essayist David Foster
Wallace. In the novel's not-too-distant future, time
itself has become a corporate marketing opportunity.
There's the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar and the Year
of the Depend Adult Undergarment. That's not to mention
the Year of the Yushityu 2007
Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade
For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office,
Or Mobile, which is often abbreviated.
The novel's system of Subsidized Time is hilarious ...
and you can almost imagine it really happening. At least
corporate-sponsored years wouldn't present the
disclosure problems of today's stealth ads -- marketing
messages that masquerade as entertainment or news
content.
The Center for Media and Democracy believes that all
advertising should be as clearly announced as the Year
of the Trial-Size Dove Bar. That's why we just filed a
comment with the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC). The FCC is debating how its sponsorship
identification rules apply to product placement, product
integration and other types of "embedded advertising"
relayed over television or radio stations.
In 2003, Commercial Alert urged the FCC to address
product placement disclosure. "Advertisers can puff and
tout, and use all the many tricks of their trade," the
watchdog group wrote. "But they must not pretend that
their ads are something else."
Especially, we would add, when that "something else" is
news programming.
The intrusion of marketing and public relations messages
into newscasts goes far beyond the video news release
epidemic we've researched extensively, written about and
urged the FCC to address, with limited success. In 2006,
one in eight television news directors surveyed said
they had either already done product placements in their
newscasts or were considering doing so. An academic
analysis of hundreds of television newscasts from 2004
detected at least one instance of "stealth" advertising
in 90 percent of the news programs.
Clear disclosure of product placement and product
integration in entertainment programming is important.
But, for our comment to the FCC, we decided to focus on
what we know best: news media. Sadly, there's more than
enough evidence of undisclosed or poorly disclosed
stealth ads in newscasts to warrant a submission focused
on the issue.
Read our comment -- on our website, at http://www.prwatch.org/node/7772
-- for more on embedded advertising in news programming.
You can also read the comments filed by other groups and
individuals by visiting the FCC's electronic comment
filing system and searching for proceeding number 08-90.
Not surprisingly, the submitted comments fall into two
broad groups: consumer advocates calling for better
disclosure and industry advocates wanting to maintain
the status quo. On the consumer side, Commercial Alert
reiterated its call for clear and concurrent disclosure
of embedded ads. The Writers Guild of America, West also
supported clear "simultaneous disclosure" and included
screen shots from various television shows to illustrate
how current notices are barely legible. The Children's
Media Policy Coalition called for a ban on "embedded
advertising and the use of interactive links to
commercial advertising on children's programs." The
Center for Science in the Public Interest and Marin
Institute both highlighted issues around stealth ads for
alcohol. An individual commenter expressed concern about
the extent of product placement in "radio music, music
videos and internet music."
On the industry side, the National Association of
Broadcasters urged the FCC to take no action, stating
that "the current rules already address the issues
raised." GroupM, a WPP subsidiary that described itself
as "the world's leading global media investment
management operation," claimed that embedded advertising
is already "fully transparent." The National Cable &
Telecommunications Association warned the FCC that it
lacks the authority to require cable networks to
disclose embedded ads. The Motion Picture Association of
America responded with "an emphatic 'no'" to the
question of whether movies shown on television should
disclose product placements. Viacom didn't submit a
comment, but did file notice that its representatives
met with FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell in July, to
discuss "the state of the advertising market today and
the challenges and opportunities facing media companies
in light of fragmenting viewership and the increasing
use of digital video recorders." Lastly, the
industry-funded think tank Progress and Freedom
Foundation simply dismissed the entire process as "the
Commission's latest effort to micromanage the free
marketplace of ideas, i.e., the media."
The big question, of course, is where the FCC goes from
here. Stay tuned. |
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