Advertising
Giscard v Mitterrand
Philip Kleinman
The role of advertising is not usually a topic with which political elections are much con cerned, though their outcome may often be determined by the nature of the candidates' own advertising efforts. I do not remember any references to the topic in the speeches of either Mr Heath or Mr Wilson in the last British general election, even though the Labour Party had produced in opposition a Green Paper advocating a tax on advertising. This omission on the part of our leaders is perhaps regrettable because, even though advertising is not in itself of crucial social or economic importance, attitudes towards it are a good indication of how politicians are likely to approach social and economic problems in general.
In France, where they order most things slightly differently, both the candidates in Sunday's presidential final have gone on record with eve-of-poll statements on what they think about advertising. The statements, made in response to a request by the Paris advertising trade magazine, Strategies, are of particular interest in that they illustrate two diametrically opposed ideological positions. With French public opinion appearing as I write these words to be almost equally divided between the two candidates, it seems worthwhile examining both statements, whichever man may have been elected by the time you read them.
Valery Giscard d'Estaing, despite the fact that he draws his strongest support from big business, has a reputation among French admen for being unsympathetic to their industry. He is certainly less enthusiastic about it than is the defeated Gaullist leader Chaban-Delmas. Nevertheless admen can't have found too much to, complain of in this: "Advertising, as an essential modern communication system, must at the same time continue its central role in our market economy and keep itself free of abuses. In that case it will be fully able to be the ally of individuals in a liberal society."
Although there is a hint of possible tighter statutory control of advertising copy in that reference to "abuses," it is not surprising that 88 per cent of advertising people interviewed by Strategies expressed their preference for Giscard as against his Socialist rival Francois Mitterrand.
In speaking to the industry, Mitterrand did not mince his words: "Advertising in contemporary France is one of the prime instruments of the hegemony of producers. It contributes to the incessant and artificial creation of. new needs of an individual kind at the expense of collective needs." The socialist candidate conceded that advertising "plays an essential role in economic life by informing the consumer about the products available to him," but he spelt out clearly a number of proposals calculated to frighten the life out of most admen.
'First, he envisaged the creation of a new tax on r..clvertising payable by advertisers and to be used for financing the consumerist bodies which he believed to be too financially weak to do their job thoroughly. Secondly, he was in favour of. a complete ban on advertising for dangerous products such as tobacco and alcohol and for products, such as petrol and pharmaceutical drugs, distribution of which is already subject to official regulations.
Thirdly, he wanted strict control of outdoor advertising for aesthetic reasons, and fourthly, and most importantly, he proposed to drop all brand advertising from statecontrolled television, which now accounts for roughly fifteen per cent of all media ad spending. He was quite explicit about his motive for this last policy — the wish to prop up the independence of the pressby diverting advertising revenue back to it from the box.
Whether any French government, even a socialist one, actually would cut TV advertising and hence its own income once it was in power is a slightly different question. A majority of admen told Strategies they did not think it would.
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