Here above is the Radio Trailer that was made for this campaign, you also can refer to this for any statements I make with the legal and ethical constraints my team and I had to work with.
When planning and creating my advertisement campaign for Defend Our Island, a BBC 3 drama, I was cautious and aware of the legal and ethical constraints imposed on how I create my ads and I made sure that I followed these constraints to make sure my advertisements were Legal, Honest, Truthful and Decent as all British adverts should be in the UK to deter false advertising to the British People. Now to ensure this, I checked with the legal advise that the BCAP Code has provided to all TV advertisers and also with the CAP code with my Non TV advertisements. I also could have approached Clearcast, a private organisation created by many popular broadcasters such as ITV and Channel 4. The have designated themselves as the main helpers for UK broadcasters to approve all forms of advertisement. To seek approval to them I would have had to give them a full written draft of the script before production and what it would have in the ad like dialogue and imagery. However I did not submit to this process because overall I know the legal and ethical constraints I have to abide by and I also do not want to spend a substantial amount of my funding to the subscription costs. One way I managed to understand the codes of ASA was going on there website and understanding what is legal and what isn't. Overall We made sure not to break the rules and regulations of ASA by following their codes that they provided to every advertisement which I will discuss later in this blog post, these codes are the CAP code for Broadcasting advertisements as well as the BCAP codes.
What is ASA and CAP?
The Advertisement Standards Authority or ASA for short, is the UK's main advertisement regulator for all UK advertisements across all media therefor it will be them who decide if the advertisement my team and I have created is suitable for public use. They make sure that all ads in the UK are responsible and that they do not mislead the public in terms of experience, price etc. Through there Sister Organisation, The Committee for Advertisement Practice or CAP for short. In 2017, they made 389,289 forms of advise through seminars and webinars for a range of different companies, free of charge to reduce the amount of irresponsible ads being released to the British Public. To make sure my Media advertisements are suitable for their regulations I must make sure that my team and I follow the regulatory codes that ASA has provided for the British media industry. The types of codes, ASA has made are listed below. ASA can make us take down or change any of our adverts if they have to, and they will regulate, TV, Radio, Print and all other forms of advertisements.
BCAP and CAP codes.
ASA has set up codes for all companies of the media industry to follow and they are the BCAP and CAP codes. The BCAP code consists of regulations for the development and the release of all TV and Radio adverts to make sure that these ads are Legal, Honest, Truthful and Decent. The same can be said for the CAP codes how ever they are used for all sorts of print advertisements like billboards, posters and magazines. The CAP code also consists of regulations in which prevent Print Media adverts from misleading the public and making them Legal, Honest, Truthful and Decent. To ensure these codes are met by my advertisement campaign I must ensure that I have thoroughly looked at both codes to ensure the advertisement campaign is not in breach of them.
Ofcom
In the past I have also spoken about Ofcom and how they regulate media. They are used to age restrict all forms of TV advertisement and media, and the way they do it is age restricting media products that may not be suitable for younger audiences. For example a media Product with lots of foul language, blood and gore and sexual acts will most likely be restricted to only 18+ year olds whereas if a media product did not have any of these it will be rated U for a universal audience. My client has asked my to ensure that this advertisement campaign is rated 15 maximum as the target audience for BBC 3 is 15-21 year olds therefor I must take to account the conventions of a 15 rating and ensure the footage of the ads will not breach there conventions to rate the ads higher.
The BBFC
The British Board of Film Classification is similar to Ofcom in which it is an age regulator for media however it's main function is the age classification of Films instead of TV. Because my ads will be viewed mostly on TV, radio and print. I wont have to comply with them in terms with meeting their conventions however it will be useful to read there codes to ensure that a similar rating will be given to us by Ofcom and other regulatory bodies.
What will I had to consider when planning the advertisement campaign.
After I was made aware of the different regulatory bodies that may prevent the adverts in this campaign from being released to the public I made sure to research and understand each form of regulations that each type of media may have to make sure funding and time is not wasted making these ads. A few examples of making sure there are no breach of regulations, are; reducing the amount of blood to zero in the ads, making sure there is no foul language and of course making sure there is nothing that will mislead the public for example 'this show will make you a superhero' because it won't. Overall in the advertisements that were made for this campaign, there was no statements at all that where made that could mislead the public as there was no statements at all in the advertisements. You can check this in both the TV and Radio Trailers at the top of this blog post above.
Understanding Representation
Now after understanding all the different regulations and codes that are all included in the Legal part of creating advertisements I had to also understand the Ethical side to Advertising as well, one noticeable part being representation. Representation is basically how the media re-presents curtain people or groups in the way they want you, the audience to see them for example the media advertising cleaning products with women or presenting politicians as straight, white, rich, old men etc. In the advertisements for Defend Our Island I must make sure that we are representing all people and groups fairly, this can be done by being careful when presenting the audience with curtain characters of curtain groups and what they have to say in the advertisements. In Defend Our Island there is one group of people that are not really shown in a good light, this group of people are the Germans as this show is based in WW2. Now in the radio and TV trailers there is only one instance of a German speaking and its only him saying 'what's your name' so their is not really that much representation of the Germans however it must be said that in the series as a whole the word 'Germany' is only used once (I'm referring back to Unit 22) and the word 'Germans' is not used at all, instead the enemy are referred as Nazis as not all of them were German and of course not all Germans were Nazis. So overall in the advertisement campaign my team and I have made sure that all types of people are represented fairly as in the advertisements we have been careful to not represent any culture or peoples unfairly and in the instance of a curtain person of a curtain culture is speaking it is only for a small instance at the start of both the radio trailer and TV trailer.
Risk Assessment
To meet all legal and ethical constraints I must make sure that overall the shooting area is safe and secure of any risks such as injury to persons from props or settings and also risks such as infection outbreaks of COVID on the set. COVID is one of the more important risks we had to deal with even though at the time of filming the COVID lockdown rules had come to an end and overall was less of a risk as everyone on set was vaccinated or already had the virus before and therefor at least some resistance to the virus. What we did to make sure that no one would be infected with COVID is that we made sure that social distancing was apparent on the set at all times as well mask wearing as well when there was no need not to wear one. These rules in place not only ensured the health and safety of the actors and crew but also ensured that the production process wouldn't be delayed like many other productions during the COVID pandemic. Overall, all risks where taken into account before the production of the show and we made sure that all crew and actors were made clear of these risks to ensure that they don't get injured or infected in the production of the advertisements and also so we don't have to deal with any future lawsuits for the potential injuries that could happen.
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