Obscene pictures

Instead of new values, social advertising in Russia creates new conflicts

Amendments to serious laws happen to be adopted for comical reasons. In the spring of 2006, large, six by three meters, billboards appeared in Smolensk, on which there was a man, a flower and the words “I am a lucky one. I love you very much". The photo of the billboard quickly went viral on the Internet. "Creative * good luck!" - sneered on the forums of advertisers. But soon the law on advertising was amended to prohibit the use of obscenities in an advertising "creative". But if the loving Smolensk had not poured out his soul in such a strange way, there would probably be a hole in the law even now.

Another hole in the advertising legislation was discovered this spring. In Moscow, St. Petersburg and other Russian megacities, billboards of the same size, six by three, appeared with the image of a baby sleeping on his stomach in a diaper, on whose back was a extinguished cigarette butt. “Smoking in the presence of a child is even more torture for him,” the text above the child claimed.

Another series of anti-tobacco campaigns worked: the creative development of the marketing communications group ADV, placed on the billboards of News Outdoor, the largest player in the outdoor advertising market, was talked about. True, mostly with irritation and indignation. The public demanded to investigate, but no violations of the current law on advertising could be found. The inspectors noted only that the legislation on the rights of the child was violated. Thus, the discussion about the need to tighten control over social advertising was revived. The question is who will tighten the screws and how much.

SOMETHING EQUAL IN IMPACT

Launching at the beginning of the year a large project "Does it matter?!", News Outdoor and ADV hoped to "call on people to take an active civic stand in all the negative phenomena of our reality." The first series, where a cigarette turned into a bullet, passed quietly. Scandalous posters of the second series, with a baby, appeared on the streets in early March. According to News Outdoor, there were 350 of them - a little more than one and a half percent of all Moscow billboards of this size. “This is a drop in the ocean against the backdrop of a powerful campaign promoting smoking as an element of Dolce Vita,” said Dmitry Korobkov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ADV. Attractive images, Korobkov assures, had to be countered with something equal in terms of impact, so they had to be “extremely tough, provocative, leaving no one indifferent.”

Indifferent, really, did not remain. “As soon as I saw this baby, I almost burst into tears right on the street,” Muscovite Anna Karnaukhova, mother of one and a half year old Nikita, is indignant. “I immediately imagined how some idiot would see this poster - and bull in the back!” Anna just didn't know where to complain. However, the capital's advertising committee, assures its leadership, has received many appeals from indignant Muscovites. The head of the committee, Vladimir Makarov, complained that his department cannot remove them on its own, but can only ask the Federal Antimonopoly Service to check whether these images violate the law - its powers include, among other things, oversight of advertising.

A few days after the appeal - by the standards of the FAS this is fast - the antimonopoly service reported that, indeed, this advertisement violates the law. But not the law on advertising, but the law on basic guarantees of the rights of the child, because the text of the law on advertising does not say anything about this.

Now the department is preparing a response to the next, third billboard of this campaign, where a cigarette, like a razor, cuts the veins on a woman's arm. There it will be impossible to refer to the law on the rights of children, admits Andrei Kashevarov, deputy head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service: “The current legislation in the field of advertising does not give us the opportunity to stop such campaigns. In my memory, this is the first such high-profile case, but one is enough to raise the question of what to do with this hole in the law. Kashevarov believes that it is wrong to extend to social advertising all the restrictions that are already prescribed for commercial advertising, and the FAS does not plan to propose its own version of amendments to the law.

DESTRUCTIVE EXPERIMENT

Now social advertising is subject to mandatory control only if it claims to be placed on free space. “[Today] billboard owners can hang whatever they want,” says Gyuzella Nikolayshvili, an associate professor at the Higher School of Economics and author of a textbook on the theory and practice of social advertising. - For pornography, they were at least fined, but for cruelty?! In our country, this concept is vague.”

In Russia, advertising is used to almost everything. Almost the only thing the viewer is not ready for is an open demonstration of cruelty towards a child. And it is this taboo that the authors of the posters with the baby violated, says Lyubov Yakubovskaya, an expert in the field of social projects.

Yakubovskaya refers to the results of one of the few studies in this area. The survey was commissioned by the agency Naturally, when it was working on a series of very tough public service announcements to promote driving safety. In one of the clips of this series, a child, when his mother is distracted by chatting with a friend, runs after the ball in front of a truck. Precisely because in the mind of a Russian person misfortune with a child is an absolute taboo, there was no final frame in the video. But some TV channels still refused to put it on the air even for a fee.

Guzella Nikolayshvili of the Higher School of Economics recalls this series as an example of an irresponsible "destructive experiment". Advertisers often "advocate shock," she says. A video with a baby and a poster with a baby are examples of the fact that the advertising community does not always adequately evaluate its work. Many market experts come to the conclusion that self-regulation in this area no longer works - an external arbiter is needed.

According to Nikolayshvili, a public expert council, which would evaluate advertising projects, could partly solve the problem. Members of the Public Chamber, to which citizens outraged by billboards with a baby, and even advertisers themselves, also spoke out for the creation of such a body. “Our company is 100% for the creation of an ethics council that will determine the “sanity” of a poster, its visa [will be] a guarantee of the ethics of the layout,” says Ekaterina Belousova, representative of another major operator in the outdoor advertising market, Gallery agency.

But only if we are not talking about the introduction of preliminary censorship, advertisers stipulate. “If we are talking about a structure that, in fact, will carry out censorship, then we are against it,” says Maxim Tkachev, managing director of News Outdoor.

There is no need to panic and try to regulate everything, says Elena Topoleva, a member of the working group of the Public Chamber. She assures that the Civic Chamber's initiative to create an external expert council is not an attempt to introduce censorship: “In no case do we propose to censor every project! We need a body to resolve conflict situations, to deal with complaints, and in order to control this area, there is the Federal Antimonopoly Service and the prosecutor's office. Opinions - separately, violations of the law - separately!

The Chamber has only ideas and proposals so far. A separate draft law on social advertising will be ready at best in six months, Topoleva believes. The Ministry of Economic Development takes part in the preparation, which is working out, in particular, issues related to taxation - now even gratuitous placement of social advertising is subject to various taxes.

SWEATER FOR TERRORISTS

A package of amendments to the law on advertising has been in the Duma for a year and a half, having passed the first reading. According to one of its authors, Vladimir Medinsky, "the idea was that there should be a lot of social advertising, and preferably free." However, the deputy says, the meaning of the amendments was "changed to the exact opposite of what was meant." As a result, the amendments still offer to pay for the placement of social advertising, albeit with a 50 percent discount. “No one needs it now, social advertising: neither society, nor the television business, nor, ultimately, the authorities are ready!” - Madinsky is indignant.

The Law on Advertising is not so old - it was adopted in the last edition in 2006. A small chapter on social advertising was written in one of the versions of the law by Igor Burenkov, the author of the first and most memorable domestic social advertising Call Your Parents. The term "social" also belongs to Burenkov.

Ten years ago, there was no social advertising market as such, there were one-time orders from international non-profit organizations like the Wildlife Fund (WWF), Greenpeace. The market became more active when the benefit of social advertising - state propaganda of values ​​- was realized by the state.

One of the first active state customers was the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which managed to find sponsors for its campaigns. In 2005, billboards “Police Telephone 02” appeared on the streets with the logo of the sponsoring insurance company. Other law enforcement agencies, like the Ministry of Internal Affairs, did not flirt with creativity, preferring an extremely simple design. There was nothing else on the numerous posters of the FSB “Your call will tie the hands of the terrorists: the FSB helpline”. Although the development agency not only suggested illustrating the slogan with the hairy hands of a “terrorist” tied with a red telephone wire, but also managed to conduct a casting of the hands. But the people's "creatives" frolic enough: it came to the slogan "Your call will knit a sweater for terrorists."

The state holds tenders for the production of social advertising - in the same way, for example, as tenders for the supply of furniture for some ministry. The standard procedure for choosing the winner - whoever offers the shortest time or the lowest, albeit unrealistic, price, wins - has already given rise to several comic stories. For example, in the tender of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency for the development of a campaign to promote mass donation, the application won, the authors of which contracted to complete this order in just one hour. Later, however, the results of the tender were annulled. And one of the participants in the competition of the Ministry of Sports was ready to prepare a strategy for propaganda work and did it in “zero days”. The bureaucratic procedure for selecting performers emasculates the very idea, Guzella Nikolayshvili believes: “People who make decisions [remain] indifferent, they don’t care which project they choose.”

But social advertising, which leaves even customers indifferent, is meaningless. Burenkov recalls that when he and his colleagues worked on Call Your Parents, he wanted his then-little daughter, who easily grasped advertising slogans, to remember something useful as well. Now Burenkov's daughters are already twenty. “She continues to communicate with me and call - this is the best confirmation that that advertisement was useful,” says Burenkov. “And I know, not just for me.”