Day 055 - 25 Nov 94 - Page 05
1 food.
2
3 Certainly, the intention of many advertisements is to
4 encourage children to ask their parents or to enquire of
5 their parents about whether they can have the product in
6 question.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If your interpretation of 5 is right, there
9 would not be any children's advertising at all, because if
10 your view of what "exhort" means, all advertising directed
11 at children must be, to use another word, encouraging them
12 to purchase or to ask their parents or others to make
13 enquiries or purchases, would it not?
14 A. Indeed; and it seems somewhat of an anomaly to me, in
15 that advertisers are not permitted to directly exhort and
16 yet they can indirectly exhort; and that certainly seems to
17 be an anomaly in the Code.
18
19 Q. If it was not direct exhortation, number 5 would mean no
20 advertising to children, no children's advertising?
21 A. That they could not reasonably be expected to purchase
22 for themselves.
23
24 Q. No, because it says "must not exhort children to purchase
25 or to ask their parents or others"?
26 A. Yes, indeed, as it says there.
27
28 Q. I take your point about young children can only get things
29 by their parents or others -- very young children -- but
30 this goes further: you cannot even exhort children to
31 purchase on their own if they do have money and they are
32 old enough to go to a shop or something?
33 A. Yes, that is what is said here. I still think it is an
34 anomaly.
35
36 Q. You would rather get rid of the words "direct exhortation"
37 or "exhort", and say that advertisements must not encourage
38 children to purchase, or something like that; and that
39 would get rid of children's advertising, would it not?
40 A. That is not a proposal that has been put forward. My
41 point in raising this at this point is to point out the
42 anomaly in relation to the interpretation.
43
44 Separately, I have argued that I believe there is a case
45 for restricting advertising of products to children that
46 may cause harm to them; for example, nutrition.
47
48 Q. I understand that. I am just looking at the interpretation
49 at paragraph 5.
50 A. In point 6 -----
51
52 MR. MORRIS: On point 5, are there particular concerns about the
53 age of the children in the spirit of that, in terms of
54 ability to understand or appreciate what an advert is?
55 A. There is nothing that is written in here that implies
56 an age concern, but I think it is fair to say that younger
57 children are more likely to need to ask their parents for
58 products if they are going to wish to have those products.
59
60 Q. Do you think on number 5, again, there is an implication
