MANILA – J Romero & Associates has provided a detailed account of its “unpleasant” experience before the Advertising Standards Council, a development that led the agency’s managing director to raise the need of reforming the industry body.
Managing director Ernesto Gatchalian, himself a professional screener years during ASC’s early days, was prompted to detail the experience as a rejoinder to an infographic, The IXM Guide ASC Approvals’ created by the indie shop and approved by the ASC, that among other things advised agencies to lose the attitude and come prepared for hell.
“It has grown insidiously over the years. The ASC never behaved that way when I was there as a professional screener,” he said.
Gatchalian said he was left befuddled by the experience of getting approval for a campaign tagline, ‘Secure your future with Manulife today’ although a rival campaign ‘Fail-proof your future with AXA’ by IXM succeeded.
Present at three of the five presentations to the ASC, Gatchalian said new issues kept cropping up in subsequent rounds although the agency had secured approval for everything except the tagline in the first round.
Frustration with the process coupled with similar complaints from agency peers prompted Gatchalian to present J Romero’s ASC experience to the last 4A’s general membership meeting while posing the question: “Do we need reforms at the ASC?”
He said he was still awaiting feedback at press time.
Reminding the industry the ASC was an industry service with the twin goals of protecting consumers while also “helping honest advertisers to advertise their products”, Gatchalian said: “Respect must be mutual. We must respect the ASC and the people in it. But they must respect us too. Respect, when one-sided, is not respect. It is slavery.
“The ASC should not blindly slice and dice and hair split the rules. In interpreting the rules, the ASC should be guided by the reason why the rules and the ASC itself exists, and that is contained in the ASC’s own avowed Mission and Values. Three words stand out: Truth, Fairness and Service.”
In asking the industry to consider if the ASC needed reforms, he said it was far better to have the industry self regulate through the ASC rather than have the government take on the role. But he noted that the gap between the present ASC process and a government regulator was at the moment very small.
