As expected: "The advertiser has not provided a response to the Panel's determination"

The following ads were all given the green light by the Advertising Standards Board. Collective Shout is calling for an advertising industry overhaul. Sign the petition here. 

"Sexism is not always obviously violent, exploitative or degrading. It can be unintended or disguised innocently as humour, but it is always insidious, offensive to and exclusionary of its victims."

Sign the petition

In Australia we have a self regulatory advertising system. This system is in place to (supposedly) ensure that "advertisements and other forms of marketing communications are legal, decent, honest and truthful and that they have been prepared with a sense of obligation to the consumer and society and a sense of fairness and responsibility to competitors."

As part of this system a 'code of ethics' was drawn up. Each time a complaint is made the Advertising Standards Board goes back to this code to see if the ad is in breach of one or more of the codes. But how effective can the code of ethics be when it completely ignores sexism? 

Collective Shout call for financial penalties for repeat offenders

Honey Birdette are no stranger to the Advertising Standards Board. The sex shop which masquerades as a high end lingerie store in major shopping centres across Australia have repeatedly breached the advertising codes showing little regard for the self regulated system currently operating in Australia. 

We've been writing about Honey Birdette's porn themed advertising since 2011. 

We've spent years dealing with Ad Standards, and in this time, we've seen the many flaws in the system- one we argue needs a complete upheaval. Of course, the industry likes things exactly the way they are. As the Australia Institute said in the Letting Children Be Children report, "… advertisers also have an interest in avoiding government scrutiny that may lead to stronger regulation of advertising in the interests of the general public…Self-regulation is a strategy that enables the industry to avoid such scrutiny."

We've made a list of flaws in the current system, and narrowed it down to 25. 

It's no secret that the advertising industry's preferred model of regulation, self-regulation, has failed. Despite various government inquiries exploring the many flaws in the current system, as well as condemnation from child health professionals and the Australian Medical Association (AMA) the advertising industry has been given free reign to regulate themselves to the detriment of the community, in particular, children.

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