Legal Requirements And Guidelines For Advertisement In Australia

Anti-Discrimination Laws in Advertising

In Australia, corporations and individuals have to be aware of various Federal and State anti-discrimination laws to avoid discrimination. The advertisements for accommodation, employment, goods and services, and others should not be discriminative. The Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) provides various provisions for avoiding discrimination in the advertisement based on sex, age, disability, race, colour, religion, and others. Section 51 of the act prohibits advertisers from publishing, broadcasting or displaying any advertisement which indicates to violate anti-discrimination laws (Legislation, 2018).

The Australian Consumer Law (ACL) provides guidelines for advertisers to ensure the protection of customers. The Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) provides key provision for advertisers. Section 29 prohibits parties from making any claims in advertisements which are misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive. Moreover, corporations using social media sites and online reviews have to ensure that they are accurate, and they did not mislead customers. Section 32 prohibits corporations from promoting any offer, gift or prize which they did not intend to provide. Thus, these laws are applied to protect the rights of customers (Richards et al., 2012).

The Australian Copyright Act 1968 provides key provision for advertisement in Australia. This act provides the original work from being copied by another. This law is based on the “plus 70” law under which the work of an author is protected after 70 years of his/her death (Austlii, 2018). While advertising, corporations cannot copy other’s work since it is prohibited under this act. Advertisers have to ensure that their work is original, or they have paid for using another person’ work while advertising the same.

The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) is a self-regulatory body which has provided various codes which advertisers have to comply with. AANA has provided a Code of Advertising and Marketing to Children, Wagering Advertising, Food and Beverages Code, Environmental Claims Code and others. These codes guide advertisers to ensure that they ethically do their job in order to avoid legal consequences (King et al., 2013). These ethical guidelines ensure that advertisers are not discriminating, and they did not violate moral duties towards the society.

The Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) provides that when customers buy a product, then it comes with automatic guarantees based on which they have consumer rights if they purchase something which is not right. The products which are under $40,000 are governed under the guarantee. Moreover, produced over $40,000 which are bought for personal or household use is also covered in the guarantee. While advertising the products, advertisers have to consider these policies. Section 18 prohibits parties from making claims in advertisements which are misleading or deceptive based on which they have the guarantee to return the product and get back their money (ACCC, 2018). They can also claim compensation if the products are not the same as advertised under section 29.

Australian Consumer Law and Advertising

Australia’s Privacy Amendment Act of 2012 focuses on protecting the privacy of individuals in advertising. Online behaviour advertising which is used by corporations in which personal information of customers is used comes within the provisions of this act. As per the latest amendments in this act, the advertisers have identified information regarding the personal information which they hold, collect, use and disclose. Online behavioural adverting (OBA) uses sensitive data of customers which are collected from cookie and activities of customers (APH, 2018). The Privacy Act applies to this situation under which advertisers have to ensure that they did not violate the privacy of customers.

There are various factors which could affect the implementation of the advertisement campaign of Bounce Fitness. Successful advertising campaign is based on effective planning, design, and execution. Firstly, the issue is defining the objective of the campaign in order to identify its purpose. Without knowing what the company wanted to achieve with the advertisement campaign, it cannot become successful (Sharma, Bhosle and Chaudhary, 2012). Another problem is coming up with a message which is hard to ignore by customers. In case of Bounce Fitness, there is a wide range of fitness organisations which provide a similar experience to customers. Therefore, the success of the implementation of the advertisement campaign is affected by the fact whether the company has come up with a strong message for its audience. Social media strategy could adversely affect the implementation of the advertisement campaign of Bounce Fitness. The company should focus on effective social media interactions with customers to ensure the success of the campaign.

In this contingency plan, it is shown that the company should conduct market research in order to define the goals and objectives of the advertisement implementation plan. Segmentation, targeting, and positioning will be evaluated after which the marketing mix will be conducted. After preparation of the marketing mix, key errors and omissions of the campaign will be discussed to deal with them. The data collected during this process will be analysed, and appropriate changes will be made in the plan. After making changes in the advertisement campaign, the errors and omissions of the campaign will be dealt with.

In order to ensure that the media contracts are legal and ethical, the company should comply with the legislative framework. Firstly, Bounce Fitness should comply with the provisions of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) to avoid discriminatory factors from the advertisement. Furthermore, it should comply with the Australian Consumer Law to ensure that the rights of customers are not violated under the media contract. Effective compliance with the Australian Copyright Act 1968 is also necessary to avoid legal consequences. The guideline issued by AANA should also be followed to ensure that the advertisement campaign is ethical. For ensuring that the privacy and rights of customers are protected, the corporation should comply with provisions of the Privacy Amendment Act of 2012 and the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).

Copyright Act and Advertising

Fitness Australia is selected as the service provider for the advertisement campaign of Bounce Fitness as it is a national organisation which is one of the best in the fitness industry. The corporation has the capacity to reach over 25,000 AusREPs (REPs), and it generally charged around $1500-$2000 for breakfast slots (Fitness, 2018a). For the quote for 20 advertisements in order to promote the services of Bounce Fitness during the breakfast show time slots is $1000 for a 30-second commercial and the cost for 20 advertisement will be $20,000. The conversation regarding this quoted price happened through the email in which the detail regarding the advertisement was given to the advertisement agency. The first quote price made by the advertisement agent was $1200 for one time slot in the breakfast slot time. The negotiations for the quote happened through the email as well. It was negotiated that the price should be $900 if the contract is formed for 20 advertisements. The advertisement agent did not agree for $900, however, they agreed to lower the price to $1000 if half price is paid in advance for 20 advertisements. A better deal was taken due to successful negotiation. The negotiation was successful because the number of advertisement was high as per the timing because most companies avoid advertising their products in this time slot due to high prices.

The advertisement agent has attached the terms and conditions of the contract in the email. As per the terms, the advertisement should be exactly 30 second long, neither short nor long. The terms also define various elements which should not be included in the advertisement. The advertisement should not include any content which is considered as hateful or against the safety of people (Fitness, 2018b). It should not display any content against the government or the country. If the advertisement contains an offer, prize or gift for the customers, then the company must have the intention to give such offer, prize or gift to the customers or else the company can be held liable for violating section 32 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. In the contingency plan, the negotiation of the advertisement taken place in the first week. The purpose of collecting the data earlier than expected was to ensure that while conducting the marketing mix, the budget of the advertisement did not get affected and the company has a proper estimation of the costs incurred in the advertisement process. Moreover, any changes which are made in the contingency plan due to errors or omission will also be taken effect in the seventh week to ensure that the budget for the advertisement campaign did not go overboard due to the changed made in the campaign because of errors and omissions. Thus, the factors which are addressed in the contingency plan such as STP and marketing mix are evaluated before selecting the quote for the advertisement to ensure that this budget did not go overboard.

AANA Codes of Ethics for Advertising

The success of the advertisement campaign is based on a number of factors. Various elements are evaluated below in order to determine whether the execution of the advertisement campaign of Bounce Fitness was successful or not.

The success of the advertisement campaign execution depends on the fact whether it had generated enough traffic and reached a wider audience (Landa, 2016). In the case of Bounce Fitness, television is selected for advertisement of the products. A premium slot is selected by the company at breakfast time in which a large number of people were watching television. Due to this premium time slot, the advertisement reached a wider audience which generated more traffic on the social media sites of the company as well.

The company is required to evaluate the people who are visiting to investigate regarding the services of the corporation and whether they are coming back or not. In this case, the people who were inquiring regarding the services include people who are looking for a fitness organisation which is focused on customers’ interest. The customers who wanted to change their existing fitness provider and wanted to start a new fitness campaign. These are the key audience of Bounce Fitness who started inquiring regarding its services after the advertisement campaign.

The services received in the advertising budget of the company determine its success. Bounce Fitness has received effective services from Fitness Australia which were in its budget. Due to effective negotiation, the company received a premium service which was within its budget. Since a significant amount is not invested in the advertisement for the services of the company, the campaign was successful without increasing the budget of the company.

Without positive customer interactions, an advertisement campaign is not considered as successful. It is important that the message which was delivered through the advertisement campaign is received correctly by the targeted customers (Moriarty et al., 2014). Whether or not the message has been delivered is evaluated by the number of customer interactions with the company. In the case of Bounce Fitness, the response of customers was positive because many customers contacted the company after seeing the advertisement. There were intrigued by the advertisement campaign and wanted to know more about the services of the company. Thus, a positive response is taken by the customers after showing the advertisement.

Based on all these factors, it is concluded that the advertisement campaign of Bounce Fitness was successful. The corporation targeted its customers through the advertisement and the message of the company was sent clearly to them. The objectives of the advertisement campaign were achieved through the campaign based on which it is considered as successful.

I  being    

[Name of Supervisor] [Job title and company] 

verify that I consider the details ticked satisfactory / not satisfactory above to be, in my opinion, a true, fair and honest reflection of the consistent performance of the Learner named in relation to the performance criteria as noted in the table. 

Signature of Supervisor:  Date:  Any other comments: 

References

ACCC. (2018) Legislation. [Online] Available at: https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/australian-competition-consumer-commission/legislation [Accessed on 20^th October 2018].

Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW)

APH. (2018) Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Bill 2012. [Online] Available at: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r4813 [Accessed on 20^th October 2018].

Austlii. (2018) Australian Copyright Act 1968. [Online] Available at: https://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/ [Accessed on 20^th October 2018].

Australian Copyright Act 1968

Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)

Fitness. (2018a) Advertise with us. [Online] Available at: https://fitness.org.au/articles/cec-services/advertise-with-us/59/86/175 [Accessed on 20^th October 2018].

Fitness. (2018b) Fitness Australia Terms & Conditions. [Online] Available at: https://fitness.org.au/articles/cec-registration-menu/fitness-australia-terms-conditions/69/76/197 [Accessed on 20^th October 2018].

King, L., Hebden, L., Grunseit, A., Kelly, B. and Chapman, K. (2013) Building the case for independent monitoring of food advertising on Australian television. Public Health Nutrition, 16(12), pp.2249-2254.

Landa, R. (2016) Advertising by design: generating and designing creative ideas across media. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Legislation. (2018) Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 No 48. [PDF] Available at: https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/inforce/f38c7dc7-ba45-ee6e-d61f-9c8e3cbd52cf/1977-48.pdf [Accessed on 20^th October 2018].

Moriarty, S., Mitchell, N.D., Wells, W.D., Crawford, R., Brennan, L. and Spence-Stone, R. (2014) Advertising: Principles and practice. London: Pearson.

Privacy Amendment Act 2012

Richards, C., Lawrence, G., Loong, M. and Burch, D. (2012) A toothless chihuahua? The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, neoliberalism and supermarket power in Australia. Rural Society, 21(3), pp.250-263.

Sharma, A., Bhosle, A. and Chaudhary, B. (2012) Consumer perception and attitude towards the visual elements in social campaign advertisement. Journal of Business and Management, 3(5), pp.06-17.

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