A couple of complaints about mortgage advertising were upheld in decisions recently released by the Advertising Standards Complaints Board.
One complaint was about a BNZ advertisement published in the New Zealand Listener. It was run over four pages and headed "New Zealand Listener Special Feature", while the bottom of the page carried the BNZ logo, the Global Plus logo and the statement "Tailored Financial Solutions".
The complainant said that three pages of this purported to be a special feature but, on closer inspection, were obviously an advert for the bank and should be labelled as such. "I think this is misleading and quite intentional, which is my problem," he said.
The advertising agency said it believed that the feature followed accepted industry practice, while the inclusion of logos and a full page advertisement in the feature contributed to make the nature of the feature and the BNZ's role clear and compliant with advertising codes of practice. NZ Magazines also argued that the ad was clearly identifiable as such, with the use of logos throughout the feature as well as the call to action establishing it as advertising and BNZ as the advertiser.
However, the Advertising Standards Complaints Board upheld the complaint, considering it in terms of Rule One of the Code of Ethics:
"Identification: Advertisements should be clearly distinguishable as such, whatever their form and whatever the medium used; when an advertisement appears in a medium which contains news or editorial matter, it must be presented so that it is readily recognised as an advertisement."
A majority of board members considered the heading or introduction "New Zealand Listener Special Feature" nebulous and in no way distinguishing it as an advertisement. The majority also felt that the typeface was so similar to the feature articles as to be indistinguishable and considered the wording to be written in editorial-style prose, rather than the generally recognised language conventionally used in advertising.
It was therefore the board's majority view that the advertorial was not distinguishable as an advertisement in its current form, so that it was in breach of Rule One of the Code of Ethics and the complaint was upheld.
The other complaint which was upheld by the Board will be covered in a later article and relates to the advertising of mortgage interest rates.