The Risk of Collateral Damage in Advertising Campaigns

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The Risk of Collateral Damage inAdvertising CampaignsKeith Crosier , Tony Hernandez , Sandra Mohabir-Collins & B.Zafer ErdoganPublished online: 01 Feb 2010.

To cite this article: Keith Crosier , Tony Hernandez , Sandra Mohabir-Collins & B. ZaferErdogan (1999) The Risk of Collateral Damage in Advertising Campaigns, Journal of MarketingManagement, 15:8, 837-855, DOI: 10.1362/026725799784772701

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Journal of Marketing Management 1999, 15,837-855

Keith Crosier1, Tony

Hernandez,SandraMohabir-Collins andB. Zafer Erdogan

University of Strathclyde, UK

Ryerson PolytechnicUniversity,Canada

University of Paisley, UK

Dum/upinar University,Turkey

Introduction

The Risk of Collateral Damage inAdvertising Campaigns

It is argued, on the basis of first principles and acase example, that 'leakage' of advertisingmessages beyond the target audience cangenerate negative reactions when 'activists' in anaccidentally addressed 'meta-audience' exert'social pressure' on the advertiser's 'micro andmacro-audiences', inflicting 'collateral damage'on the advertiser in various ways. Examinationof published data from industry sources showsthat activists are a small sub-set of the meta-audience, but it is argued that their potential toreduce the long-tenn advertising effectiveness ofsome advertising campaigns is an issue foradvertising managers and planners. Analysis ofllitherto unpublished data yields a profile of onetype of activist: those who complained abouttelevision advertising between 1996 and 1998.They belong to homogeneous social sub-groupsthat are geographically and demographicallydistinct from the general population, not least inconfonning to the notorious north-south dividein Britain. It is proposed tlwt this first-everresearch-based profile of complainants offers afactual basis on which prudent advertisingplanners can predict the risk of collateraldamage, and plan to minimise it by avoidingpre-disposing creative tactics or mediaschedules.

It is widely acknowledged that UK advertisers and their advertising agencies arewell provided with procedures and techniques for measuring the effectiveness ofadvertising in a number of ways (see, for example: Broadbent 1995). However,

I Correspondence: Department of Marketing, University of Strathclyde, StenhouseBuilding, 173 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, G4 ORQ. UK. Tel: 0141-548 3234 or 0141-9591013 Fax: 0141-552 2802 E-mail: [email protected]

ISSN0267-257X/99/080837+ 18 $12.00/0 ©Westbum Publishers Ltd.

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838 Keith Crosier, Tony Hernandez, Sandra Mohabir-Collins, B. Zafer Erdogan

these all concentrate on testing whether or not a campaign has had the hoped-for effect upon the intended target audience, nonnally by demonstrating positivetrends in such surrogate variables as awareness, recognition, recall, attitude orintention-to-purchase, and by tracking changes in sales volume. In this paper, weare concerned with unplanned effects on unintended audiences, and thenegative influence those may (though not necessarily will) exert in the longertenn.

A short case history will illustrate. Further details can be found in Falk(1997), Mantle (1999) and Crosier (1999). The Benetton brand achieved a veryhi~h level of awareness around the world during the 1980s by means of sparse,strong images, which the company ran as narrative-free advertisements on largeposter sites. They featured examples of racial hannony, under the slogan "UnitedColors of Benetton". Nevertheless, one depicting an African-American womanbreast-feeding a white baby was banned in the USA At the tum of the decade,the company dismissed its advertising agency and appointed a high-profileprofessional photographer, Oliviero Toscani, as in-house Creative Director. Thecreative strategy promptly changed tack The best known of the resulting postersare perhaps the new-born baby still attached by the umbilical cord and the AIDSsufferer dying in his father's am1S. Luciano Benetton was reported as definingthe objective of the new campaign as "making people think ...to show a spirit ofsensitivity and care for others as well as concern for our own product". However,the creative treatment soon provoked widespread comment about theundetectable connection with either the product range or the continuing "unitedcolors" strapline. There is a school of thought which argues that the freepublicity generated by a controversial campaign can add substantial leverage tothe cost-effectiveness of the advertising budget see, for example, Myers (1999) onFriends of the Earth, Christian Aid, the International Fund for Animal Welfare,Club 18-30 and Wonderbra. However, subsequent events served only todemonstrate the danger of believing the axiom that all publicity is good publicity.

Early negative reactions soon developed into widespread offence in society ingeneral. In Britain, in a single month during 1991, more than 800 complaintswere made about the newborn-baby poster to the Advertising StandardsAuthority, Trading Standards Offices, local radio stations and even the police. Itwas duly removed from 20,000 sites around the country. Regulators in Francecalled for its removal there, and it was banned in Canada before it had evenappeared. Cosmopolitan magazine refused the corresponding pressadvertisement, saying it had "responded to public outcry". A survey of more than1,000 respondents throughout the UK found that 39 per cent had been offendedby the poster, including more than a quarter of the 15-24 year-olds in the sample(Hatfield, 1991). Later, other posters in the series caused equal offence in manyother countries including Italy itself, many retailers in Gennany refused to stockBenetton goods, and French protesters damaged displays in Benetton shops.

The company's response was to shoot the messenger (Toscani suggesting thatthe British cared more for their dogs than for their children) and claim successby the yardstick that sales had risen significantly during the campaign. Readers

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The Risk of Collateral Damage in Advertising Campaigns 839

of a marketing journal hardly need to be reminded that it is dangerous to imputethis particular cause-and-effect relationship, and Figure 1 shows that thesituation is in fact rather more complex.

Figure 1. Benetlon's Revenue and Profits since the Newborn-BabyCampaign

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20

15

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5

0

-5 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997

-+- % change in revenue ___ % change in net profit

Furthem10re, simple observation today will show that Benetton advertising ishardly to be seen, its shops have retreated to smaller and lesser premises, and itsbrand name is no longer worn as a statement by its target audience. The pointis, of course, that effectiveness is a multi-dimensional value. The company mayindeed have achieved one of the stated advertising objectives, but it is hard tobelieve that they are honestly satisfied with success by that yardstick alone. Thetime-lagged effect of a high-risk strategy seems by now clearly apparent

The Collateral Damage Process

Figure 2 depicts the process exemplified by the Benetton case history. Themicro-audience is the deliberate target upon which the message is hoped to havea measurable effect The macro-audience contains other audiences recognisedin the marketing communications plan, but not explicitly targeted by the currentcampaign. The meta-audience is everyone else 'out there' who may happen toreceive the message. These concepts, or something like them, are routinelyrecognised in the 'environmental scanning' phase of marketing planning, andequally routinely ignored in the marketing communications plan (see, forexample, Stapleton and Thomas, 1998, Chapter 9).

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840 Keith Crosier, Tony Hemandez, Sandra Mohabir-Collins, B. Zafer Erdogan

Figure 2. How 'Collateral Damage' Can Occur

Meta-audience

... - ... - - -- - - - ...'"'"'".-.-"""I

II

IIIIIIII\\\\\,,,

..•. ..•. ..•. ... ...--- ---

... ... ..•. ..•..••.,,

\\\\\\\1IIIII,,

II

".-.-.-.-'"'"..1,2 deliberate communication

3 leakage4,5 social pressure

Arrows 1 and 2 symbolise primary and secondary effects envisaged, explicitJyorimplicitJy, in the advertiser's creative and media strategy plans. Arrow 3symbolises communication 'leakage' to an audience beyond identified primaryand secondary targets. This phenomenon is particularly likely when the mediumis 'broadcasf rather than 'narrowcasf, as in the case of poster campaigns such asBenetton's and the television advertising which is the focus of our research study.Arrows 4 and 5 represent a concurrent or lagged reverse effect, therebyaccidentally precipitated within the meta-audience and in due course diffused tothe target audiences. This is in effect a variant of the familiar 'two step flow ofcommunication' principle (Katz, 1955).

In many cases, the rebound effect will be negligible. In others, its impact maybe entirely neutral, or even synergistic in reinforcing the intentional message andopening up the possibility of a wider planned audience in future. But there willalways be the possibility that it results in negative social pressure, generated byactivism and diffused by opinion leadership If that effect achieves critical mass, itbegins to cause what we have called collateral damage. For the purposes of thispaper, we have assumed that conscientious strategy development will alreadyhave minimised the probability that it occurs within the intended audience.

In combination with beneficial effects in the micro and macro-audiences,collateral damage could be no more than a public relations irritant On theother hand, the potential for counter-synergy is obvious if those primary ,orsecondary effects are either neutral or negative. Nevertheless, general socialpressure nonnally has no immediate impact on campaign strategy, because

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The Risk of Collateral Damage in Advertising Campaigns 84-1

typical advertisers do not routinely monitor public opinion, media commentary orcomplaints to regulatory bodies.

Rationale for the Study

What actually happens in practice clearly depends upon the extent of thetendency to activism in the meta-audience. We have argued elsewhere (Crosier,1995) that advertising is not a unilateral force exerted by advertisers onaudiences, but a bilateral transaction in which ordinary people voluntarily engagewith the messages and images disseminated by advertisers, or choose not to. Anindustry research report has concluded that the contemporary meta-audience isan 'ad-fluent society' (Burnett, 1990). Despite popular mythology to the contraryamong social commentators, neither the practitioner literature nor academictexts reveal any convincing evidence that advertising agencies deploy secretweapons to overcome culturally-learnt coping tactics. Advertising can be thoughtof as a kind of game between willing and well matched contestants, in which avariety of judges, referees and umpires support the audience's countervailingpower.

The research study reported here examined the propensity of this culturallyadept meta-audience to take advantage proactively of the existence of one such

. 'umpire': the Independent Television Commission (ITC). During the seven yearsfor which data have so far been analysed, almost 31,000 of them did so. Theircollective complaints were "upheld wholly or in part" with respect to five per centof just over 10,000 television commercials concerned. But complaints byconsumer activists to a regulatory body, whether successful or unsuccessful, areonly the tip of the social pressure iceberg. Therefore, our model of collateraldamage further encompasses (j) a still larger number of people in the meta-audience whose objections are expressed by word of mouth or bycommunication with the media, and (ij) journalists, politicians and otherinfluentials who then take up the baton.

It is surprising that this paper should in fact be the first such investigation ofthe phenomenon, since a notable specialisation of British advertising agencies isthe account planning discipline, which seeks to "make advertising better andmore effective by introducing consumers and their attitudes into the advertisingdevelopment process ... providing an holistic understanding of consumers andbrands, and the ways that they connect" (Cooper, 1997).

It is therefore paradoxical to find no reference to public opinion, complainingbehaviour or regulatory bodies in either Coopers handbook, sponsored by theAccount Planning Group, or a literature review of the "longer and broader effectsof advertising" published by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (Baker,1990). This is perhaps a symptom of a trend noticed by a prominent figure inthe discipline: "a kind of complacency or certainly lack of passion about[account] planning, particularly among new and younger planners" (Rainey,1997).

'Passionate' planners who come across this paper will at least know more

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than they could have done before about the nature of the social pressureoriginating in the meta-audience: how the activists take action, and who andwhere they are.

We cannot yet say anything about why they act Academic colleagues oftenassert that there is already an extensive literature to answer this question, but adiligent search has found that it in fact deals with organisation's responses tocomplaints (mainly by customers to retailers), not with the complainants'motivations. A recent authoritative review furthennore identifies a "lack ofattention in the marketing literature" and shows that interest in the topicsuddenly waned ten years ago (Stephens and Gwinner, 1998:172). Preliminarythoughts about further progress on that front will be found at the end of theResearch Methods section.

Context of the Study

The findings to be reported result almost wholly from an analysis of complaintsmade to the Independent Television Commission (ITC),which is charged by Actof Parliament with a duty to exercise regulatory control over the content of alltelevision advertising. Its modus operandi is made explicit in three publicdocuments: ITC Code of Advertising Standards and Practice, Rules onAdvertising Breaks and Code of Programme Sponsorship. The first of thosecontains the general injunction that "television advertising should be legal,decent, honest and tmthful" (ITC, 1995). It is generally fairlywell known that theITC forbids the broadcasting of television commercials until it has satisfied itselfthat they meet these criteria, but much less so that it also has a statutoryobligation to respond to any subsequent public complaint about commercialsthat have survived its vetting. The sanction against any television stationtempted to let an advertiser defy consequent proscription is powerful, for the ITCalso awards and reviews all commercial broadcasting franchises.

This statutory regulation operated by the ITC is complemented by self-regulatory control over the content of non-broadcast advertising exercised by theAdvertising Standards Authority, whose Advertising Code starts from the samegeneral principle that "all advertising should be legal, decent, honest andtmthful". Enforcement is not proactive in this case, but requires the impetus ofspontaneous complaints such as those concerning Benetton advertising. One issufficient to set the process in motion. Deti;lils of what then happens can befound in Baker (1998: 10-12, 15)..

Research Objectives

The objectives of our analysis were to:

1 establish the general propensity in the UK to complain about advertising;2 establish the volume of complaints received by the ITC during each year

since it replaced the Independent Broadcasting Authority, and identify the

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trend over that seven-year period;3 establish the basis of those complaints, and examine trends in their

distribution over the same period;4 derive geographic and demographic profiles of complainants from their

postcodes;5 draw conclusions about the implications of the findings for the fonnulation

of creative and media strategies.

The data analysed in pursuit of the first three have been published anddiscussed in varying degrees of detail over the years, but never before combinedin one survey. The profile built up in response to the fourth objective is the firstever published. Consequently, this paper provides advertisers and their agencieswith hitherto unavailable planning and monitoring infonnation, to supplant or atleast supplement intuition and speculation.

This study is part of a larger research programme, the general aims of whichare (j) a ten-year comparative analysis of complaining about both broadcast andnon-broadcast advertising in Britain (ii) comparison of the British data withcomparable databases from the rest of Europe and North America (iii) progresstowards a sociological explanation of complaining behaviour.

Research Methods

Objectives 1 to 3 were straightforwardly achieved by extracting the requiredfigures from historical data in Public Attitudes to Advertising 1996 (AdvertisingAssociation, 1996), from the relevant ITC Annual Reports and Accounts, andfrom their monthly Television Advertising Complaints Reports for the periodconcerned.

The achievement of Objective 4 was made possible by access to an ITCdatabase not in the public domain, containing the postcodes of individuals whomade written complaints about television commercials which had survived thepre-clearance process. Restriction of infomlation about them to this extentpennitted us to perfoml the required analysis while preserving total anonymityon their behalf. The Royal Mail's postcode system allocates a unique identifier toevery group of, on average, 15 households in the UK For a more detailedexplanation, see Baker (1998: 203).

Recorded postcodes were entered into Experian's MOSAIC software, whichuses data at the postcode level to cluster individuals into homogeneous groups"on the basis of the type of neighbourhood in which they live"on the assumptionthat "if a set of neighbourhoods are similar across a range of demographicmeasures ...they will offer similar potential across most products, brands, servicesand media" (Evans and Webber, 1995). In other words, birds of a feather flocktogether.

MOSAIC uses 87 variables (such as housing type, age and householdcomposition) to define 52 distinct types, which can be disaggregated into 12groups (Sleight 1998). Each residential postcode in Great Britain (that is, the

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UK excluding Northern Ireland) is allocated to one such category. In this survey,13,362 were provided by 18,250 complainants: a 73% sample. They were dulyassigned to MOSAIC codes, profiled, and contrasted with the expected outcomeif they were a representative subset of the general population.

We noted earlier that our research cannot yet explain why the activists in themeta-audience complain and others do not. The only work we have so far foundthat sheds any light on this question is in two recent papers from America.Singh and Wilkes (1996) use "multiple theoretical perspectives" to develop asomewhat inconclusive conceptual framework for observed complainingbehaviour, Stephens and Gwinner (1998) apply cognitive appraisal theory to astudy of elderly female shoppers. Neither mentions complaining aboutadvertising.

Our plans for the next phase of our own research focus on two promisingframeworks. The relatively new discipline of memetics (Dawkins, 1993;Blackmore, 1999) would approach the collateral damage phenomenon as anexample of behaviour spreading within the meta-audience by a process that isbasically imitation - or not doing so, as the case may be. The more familiargrounded theory approach (Glaser, 1992) would combine very free depthinterviewing with rigorous interpretation of the outcome to generate anexplanation that is grounded in the data rather than transferred from a differentcontext. In both cases, access to hitherto anonymous complainants will berequired.

Research Findings

Volume of ComplainingThe British are comfortable with advertising. Independent field surveys

commissioned by!the Advertising Association over the last three decades haveconsistently shown that

"Advertising remains extremely low on people's list of concerns. Few peopletalk about it [spontaneously], fewer still hold strong opinions on the subject,and only a small minority feel that any major change is needed in this area"(Advertising Association, 1996).

The most recent of these surveys found that only 3 per cent of 552 adultsquestioned in June 1996 "felt strongly" about advertising and the sameproportion selected it from a list of general social phenomena in need of"immediate attention and change". Given the opportunity to pass judgment onthe abstract concept "advertising", fewer than one in six (16%) said theydisapproved "a lot" or "a little", Invited to express negative feelings about theconcrete manifestations of the abstract concept television commercials, less thana fifth of the sample (18%) professed to "dislike" or "not really like" them.

Analysis of the ITC database shows that 7,705 individuals made fOnl1alcomplaints during 1998 about television commercials which had survived the

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pre-clearance process. In the same year, non-broadcast marketingcommunications of all kinds engendered 12,217 complaints to the AdvertisingStandards Authority, according to their Annual Report Over the whole seven-year period under study, the ITC received almost 31,000 complaints concerningjust over 10,000 commercials. The average of three complaints per commercialconceals a range from a very large number attracting only one complaint each tofive suffering more than 300 (for Levi's,Lucozade, Citro~n, Vespre and Ikea).

Figure 3 plots the annual totals as a graph, to reduce the effect ofconsiderable variation in the direction and magnitude of year-on-year changes.The data on which it is based are shown in full in Table 1 in the Appendix.There is a clear overall upward trend in both complaining volume and number ofcommercials complained about, over the period under study.

Figure 3. Volume of Complaining

9,0008,0007,0006,0005,000L!,OOO

3,0002,0001,000

o1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998

___ Complaints -D- Commercials

Nature of ComplaintsThe general injunction in the ITC Code of Advertising Standards and

Practice, that television commercials should not be illegal, indecent, dishonest oruntruthful (to re-phrase the original in the negative), is supplemented by a morespecific warning that they "must not be misleading, must not encourage orcondone hanl1ful behaviour and should not cause widespread or exceptionaloffence" (lTC, 1995). The substance of complaints received is in tum allocatedby the Advertising and Sponsorship Division to one of three criteria ofunacceptability - "misleading", "offensive"and "ham1ful"- or to a "miscellaneous"category.

A misleading commercial might be either dishonest or untmthful (deceivingby omission rather than commission), Offensiveness has in practice included

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gender bias, inappropriately strong fear appeals and the use of gratuitously cmelor violent imagery unrelated to the product, as well as characteristics moreobviously related to "indecency". The ITC defines a hannful commercial as onethat could "set a bad example to children and lead them to cause ham1 tothemselves or others". In fact, the criterion has as often been applied to possiblehannful emulation among adult audiences.

Figure 4 shows that, in every year of the period under study, almost half thecommercials subject to complaint were considered by complainants to bemisleading. On average, only a quarter were objected to on grounds ofoffensiveness, but the trend has been steadily upwards since 1993 to a high of31 per cent in 1998. This change was first mirrored by a fall in complaintsallocated to the "hannful" category, always in any case below one in five. Since1995, these have climbed back to the proportion they accounted for in the firstthree years, while the misleading category shows signs of a developing downwardtrend, having relapsed to only just above where it was in 1992. Not shown in theFigure, the proportion of complaints allocated to the "miscellaneous" categoryhas varied between 10 and 20 per cent, with no discernible overall trend. Thedata on which the graph is based are given in full in Table 2 in the Appendix.

Figure 4. Nature of Complaints

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o1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998

-A--Misleading % ---o--Offensive% -D--Harmful %

This finding accords with answers to a question included in the AdvertisingAssociation's public opinion surveys, described earlier. Until 1976, respondentswho expressed disapproval of advertising or dislike of television commercialswere asked for their reasons. The most frequent answers were that advertising

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drove up prices and created false needs, while advertisements were oftenmisleading (Advertising Association, 1976).

However, closer inspection of the raw data on which Table 2 is based showsthat the less numerous "offensive" and "hannful" commercials in fact include allthose which attract the most complaints each. In 1998, the highest number ofobjections to a single commercial on grounds of misleadingness was sixteen. Bycontrast, more than a hundred complainants objected to offensiveness in sixcases: Levi's (519), Ikea (396), Computer Active magazine (243), another Ikeacommercial (175), Citroen Xsara (121) and Lucozade Low Calorie (116). Twocommercials attracted over a hundred complaints were interpreted by the ITC asbeing about "hannfulness": Dairylea Dunkers (155) and one from thegovernment concerning preparations for the Euro (106).

All but two of the advertising agencies behind these campaigns are in the topfifteen in the annual Campaign ranking table: Ogilvyand Mather (2nd), ]. WalterThompson (4th), Bartle Bogle Hegarty (10th), Euro RSCG (14th) and TBWASimons Palmer (15th). The brand which appears twice is handled by St Luke's(33rd).

Profile of ComplainantsFigure 5 displays the group profile of 13,362 complainants, constmcted by

MOSAIC in tenns of an index indicating under and over-representationcompared with the general geo-demographic make-up of Great Britain. Table 3,in the Appendix, presents the raw figures on which it is based.

The profile exhibits a disproportionate incidence of four MOSAIC "groups" inparticular. stylish singles, high income families, country dwellers and suburbansemis. This finding gives a preliminary indication of the sort of peoplecomplainants are likely to be and the type of neighbourhood in which they willtypically reside.

Disaggregating the data to the level of MOSAIC"types" reveals that the profileis distinctive to a significant degree. Table 4, in the Appendix, presents therather complex outcome in rank order. It shows the clear dominance in thesample of tile cllattering classes, clever capitalists, residents of gentrified villages,members of the bohemian melting pot corporate careerists and agingprofessionals.

Characteristics these categories have in common include above-averageeducation, managerial or professional status, and above-average income. Equallyclearly under-represented are inhabitants of the graffitied ghettos, flats for theaged and high-rise flats ("families in the sky), workers in small-town industries,and solo pensioners. These categories are characterised by low levels ofeducation and income, low work status, and over-representation at both ends ofthe age range.

Location of ComplainantsFigure 6 shows that there is also a distinct geographical bias in the propensity tocomplain. Dark bars indicate the percentage of total complainants in each area,

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848 Keith Crosier, Tony Hernandez, Sandra Mohabir-Collins. B. Zafer Erdogan

Figure 5. ProfIle of Complainants

o

pale bars the proportion of the total population which resides there. Table 5, inthe Appendix, presents the raw figures on which the map is based. Thegeographical boundaries delineate the eleven Standard Statistical Regions of theUnited Kingdom, plus Greater London. There is no index for Northern Irelandbecause the data were collected primarily for MOSAIC analysis, which isrestricted to Great Britain.

It is vividlyclear that the propensity to complain reflects the notorious north-south divide in Britain. The top four areas out of eleven are all south of a linefrom The Wash to the Bristol Channel and only Wales intemlpts theunmistakable overall gradient from south-east to north-west Furthennore, thesix Standard Statistical Regions in which propensity is lowest contain seven ofthe nation's eight officiallydesignated "conurbations".

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Figure 6. Location of Complainants

Legend: see text.

Conclusions and Implications

We have set out in this paper to raise issues concerning the extent and nature ofcomplaining about television commercials which have survived pre-screening bythe ITe. That is important from the strategic standpoint because sustainedmarket feedback of this kind has the potential to cause longer-ternl damage to acampaign that has apparently 'worked' in the short tenn. It is therefore anaspect of campaign planning and effectiveness measurement which does notdeserve the lack of interest so far exhibited by planners.

The 20,000 complaints received by the ASA and the ITC together during1998 account for less than one per cent of the households in the UK. However,the reported tracking studies of public opinion imply that about 20 per cent ofthe meta-audience periodically feels strongly enough about particular campaignsto consider exerting social pressure on the advertiser, directly or indirectly. It isreasonable to argue that even this is no more than the activist core among alarger number of potential opinion leaders. Furthernlore, the general upward

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trend in Figure 3 shows that negative social pressure is on the increase, withrespect to television advertising at least In short, complaining behaviour isheading in the direction of critical mass. As this paper went to press, the AnnualReview of the Broadcasting Standards Commission disclosed that complaintsfrom viewers and listeners, dominantly about programme content as distinctfrom advertising, had risen by 35% between 1997 and 1998.

The most dramatic cases of 1998 are not explained by a reckless minorityprovoking disproportionate disapproval. Top-flight brands handled by top-rankadvertising agencies feature in all but one of the most complained-aboutcommercials.

Further analysis of the data already in the public domain suggested, on firstinspection, that the main message which opinion leaders in the meta-audiencemight disseminate to primary and secondary audiences would concerndeliberately misleading advertising (see Figure 4). However, the highest numbersof complaints per commercial is attracted by commercials the complainants findoffensive. The distinction is similar to that between volume and pressure in awater system. Planners need to consider the relative potential for collateraldamage in periodically attracting objections about dishonesty and untmthfulnessversus occasionally suffering widespread notoriety for offending large numbers ofpeople.

Complainants are least likely to see a commercial as being hannfu/, asdefined by the ITC. Nevertheless, it could be argued that this particular criterionof unacceptability should be broadened to embrace the inculcation orreinforcement of anti-social attitudes, the encouragement of unduly competitiveconsumption aspirations, or the fostering of social anxiety about the materialparaphernalia of the consumer lifestyle: the "yobbish" tendency in Britishadvertising detected by social commentators in recent years.

To summarise so far, leakage and negative social pressure pose a small butsignificant risk of collateral damage to an advertising campaign. Accountplanners can minimise it in two main ways. First, they should encourage creativeteams to recognise the long-tern1 danger of telling the meta-audience half-tmthsor confronting them with material in dubious taste. Second, they should makesure that media planning colleagues pursue strategies to minimise leakagebeyond the target market For instance, neither Benetton nor Vespre had anyneed to address the public at large, via television and posters respectively. If thatreally is the target market, then extra caution is called for.

Turning to analysis of the data not in the public domain, the geo-demographic profile of actual complainants suggests a broad-scale socio-economic polarisation within complaining behaviour: the set of types at the topof Table 4 is more likely than those below them to contain the activists in themeta-audience, and the set at the bottom is very unlikely to include more than ahandful of active complainants. In fact, the potential opinion-leaders belongmainly to the educated and articulate middle class, not far removed from amixture of university lecturers and 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells'. They certainlydo not nonnally represent the audience which has the most to lose at the hands

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of deceptive advertisers: those living in straitened circumstances in the innercities or the big working-class suburbs. This conclusion no doubt comes as nosurprise, but the fact is that no planner can have been certain of it until now.

The polarisation must be partly due to levels of education, since postcodesimply written explanation of objections, but working-class activism is hardlyunfamiliar in other contexts. We expect our future research to identify manyother predisposing variables. It will also cross-index the profile against suchvariables as the three criteria of unacceptability, the product classes advertised,and the audience profile delivered by the media schedule.

Taken as a whole, the findings of this study provide, for the first time, a factualbasis on which pmdent advertisers can predict the risk of collateral damage, andplan to minimise it They need not thereby sacrifice creative originality or mediaeffectiveness, but rather concentrate on avoiding obvious triggers of complainingbehaviour.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the co-operation of the late Frank Willis,Director of Advertising and Sponsorship at the Independent TelevisionCommission, the continuing collaboration of the Deputy Director and hisDivision, and the kind pennission of Experian to use their systems and data toundertake the geo-demographic analysis.

Appendix

Table 1. Number of Complaints Received by ITC Per Annum

Complaints Commercials% change complained % changereceived year-on-year about year on year

1992 3,504 1,4521993 2,581 -26.3 1,062 -4.21994 3,286 +27.3 1,057 -0.51995 3,349 +1.9 1,142 +8.01996 5,317 +58.8 1,816 +59.01997 5,228 -1.7 1,452 -20.01998 7,705 +47.3 2,414 +66.2

Total 30,970 10,052

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Table 2. Commercials Complained About, by Criterion

Misleading Offensive Harmful Misc. Base% % % %

1992 39.5 25.0 18.3 17.2 1,1091993 44.8 22.7 18.4 14.1 1,0621994 49.2 22.1 16.7 12.0 1,0571995 44.0 24.3 12.0 19.7 1,1421996 47.0 26.8 12.3 13.9 1,8161997 44.2 28.4 14.6 14.5 1,4521998 40.6 30.7 18.8 9.8 2,414

Average 43.9 26.6 15.9 13.6 10,052

Table 3. ProfIle of Complainants by MOSAICGroups

MOSAICGROUPS ITC Data % All GB % Indexhouseholds

Stylish Singles 1,130 8.5 1,272,922 5.4 159High Income 2,089 15.6 2,603,070 11.0 145FamiliesCountry Dwellers 1,132 8.5 1,646,706 6.9 126Suburban Semis 1,764 13.2 2,549,820 10.7 123Mortgaged Families 950 7.1 1,636,619 6.9 IIIInstitutional Areas 49 0.4 76,000 0.3 110Town Houses and 1,323 9.9 2,250,041 9.5 104FlatsVictorian Low Status 1,262 9.4 2,198,927 9.3 99Blue Collar Owners 1,425 10.7 3,034,321 12.8 83Independent Elders 649 4.9 1,700,562 7.2 66Low Rise Council 1,128 8.4 3,198,657 13.5 61Council Flats 461 3.5 1,570,178 6.6 53

Total 13,362 100.0 23,737,823 100.0

Sources: ITC postcode data 1996-98; MOSAIC breakdown of households inGreat Britain.

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Table 4. Complainants by MOSAIC Type

I-DGH AVERAGE LOW(more than 125) (75-125) (less than 75)

Mosaic Type Index Mosaic Type Index Mosaic Type IndexChattering Classes 189 College and 123 High Spending 71

Communal GreysClever Capitalists 183 Rural Disadvantage 123 Better Off 70

CouncilGentrified Villages 168 Non Private Housing 120 Rootless 69

RentersBohemian Melting 168 Affluent Blue Collar 111 Depopulated 69Pot TerracesCorporate 166 Rural Retirement 111 Coop Club 68Careerists Mix and CollieryAgeing 162 Town Centre Singles 109 Inner City 67Professionals TowersBedsits and Shop 145 MilitaryBases 109 Brand New 67Flats AreasStudio Singles 140 Green Belt 107 Victorian 64

Expansion TenementsLowland 136 Bijou Homemakers 104 Low Rise 60Agribusiness PensionersPebble Dash 133 Market Town 100 Elderly In Own 57Subtopia Mixture FlatsMaturing 132 Pre Nuptial Owners 100 Low Rise 56Mortgagers SubsistenceSuburban Mock 131 Tied/Tenant 99 Problem 56Tudor Fanners FamiliesRising Materialists 129 Rejuvenated 95 Smokestack 56

Terraces ShiftworkUpland and Small 128 Low-rise Right To 88 Sweatshop 48Famls Buy SharersSmall Time 126 Nestmaking Families 84 Mid Rise 42Business Overspill

30s Industrial Spec 79 Solo 41Pensioners

Aged Owner 77 Families In 41Occupiers The Sky

Small Town 37IndustryFlats For The 28AgedGraffitied 28Ghettos

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854 Keith Crosier, Tony Hernandez, Sandra Mohabir-CoIlins, B. Zafer Erdogan

Table 5. Geographical Distribution of Complainants

ITe data % All GB % Indexhouseholds

London 2,448 18.0 2,973,751 12.7 143South East 3,326 24.4 4,482,806 19.1 128East Anglia 579 4.2 890,266 3.8 111South West 1,273 9.4 2,021,869 8.6 108East Midlands 874 6.4 1,689,763 7.2 89North West 1,348 9.9 2,612,194 11.1 88West Midlands 1,094 8.0 2,125,933 9.1 88Yorkshire and 924 6.8 2,077,920 8.8 77HumbersideWales 482 3.5 1,173,467 5.0 70North 482 3.5 1,289,579 5.5 65Scotland 762 5.7 2,147,902 9.1 62

Total l3,612 100 23,485,450 100

Sources: ITC postcode data 1996-98; Estimates Unit of the Office for NationalStatistics. All except Greater London and South East are Standard StatisticalRegions; London is a government official region, extracted from the standardstatistical population of the South East for the purposes of this table. The totalsvary from those in Table 3 because MOSAIC rejected incomplete or inaccuratepostcodes and worked on a specific household database.

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Documents

The Risk of Collateral Damage in Advertising Campaigns