| Popis: |
Advertisers must pay attention to the trend toward regulating advertising that does not contain specific product information. ~ ~ A l i v e with pleasure," enthuses the billboard and magazine advertisements for a longrunning Newport cigarette campaign. The ads portray attractive young men and women smiling, touching, and smoking. Beautifully photographed scenes of nature provide a backdrop for the models. Do these ads inform us of anything? Do they affect our behavior? Do they mislead us? Should they be regulated? Reading the tea leaves of the legal environment of business suggests new regulation of advertising on the business horizon. This will take the form of limitations on Madison Avenue's use of music, visual imagery, and "slice-of-life" portrayals to sell products. It will focus on these advertising techniques when they are extrinsic to actual product-purchase characteristics yet serve to attract consumers to purchase products. The new advertising regulation may stop with limitations on the advertising of certain products that society deems harmful, such as tobacco and alcohol, but changes in social outlook could also promote new regulation for many products. As we approach the twenty-first century, environmental or other developments might severely test the social ethic that envisions freedom primarily as the ability to sell and consume ever-increasing quantities of products. Advertising is the most visible interface between sellers and consumers, and it would provide a likely target for regulation during periods of social concern about mass consumption habits. Especially targeted would be advertising techniques that help generate consumer demand by associating everything good and beautiful with an advertiser's product, but that do not themselves provide product-intrinsic information. To appreciate the potential for legal regulation of product-extrinsic advertising, it will be necessary to: • Define and examine product-extrinsic advertising; • Consider how this advertising informs consumers; • Review the law regulating advertising; and • Evaluate developments that recognize the legal significance of product-extrinsic advertising. |
