Advertising to children in Sweden

Citation

Plogell, M. and Wardman, J. (2009), "Advertising to children in Sweden", Young Consumers, Vol. 10 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/yc.2009.32110dab.001

Advertising to children in Sweden

Article Type: Legal briefing From: Young Consumers, Volume 10, Issue 4

Special focus on how the recession has impacted a country that has a rather regulatory approach to advertising

This article is a further development from an earlier article on Advertising to children in Sweden, written by Michael Plogell and Jesper Sundström of Wistrand Advokatbyrâ. The former article outlined the legislation in Sweden relating to advertising to children. Also this article includes a short introduction to the Swedish legislation, which is rather regulatory in terms of advertising to children. However, the purpose of this article is to focus on what impact the recession may have had on advertising to children in a country where the legislation is rather regulatory. Are there any changes in the advertising methods and media due to the recession, and in that case, in what ways have the methods changed?

Advertising to children – general remarks

Sweden is a country with a long tradition of consumer protection and especially in respect of consumer groups that are considered to be weaker, such as children. The Consumer Protection Agency and the Consumer Ombudsman are the government authority that protects the interests of the consumers.

The Marketing Practices Act (“MPA”) is the general law that applies to all marketing activities in Sweden, irrespective of target audience and media. In accordance with this law, as a general rule, all marketing must be in accordance with good marketing practices and otherwise fair to consumers and undertakings. Further on, marketing shall be trustworthy and not misleading, according to the EU Directive on misleading advertisement, which has been enacted by Sweden.

When determining whether advertising is in accordance with good marketing practices or not, sources such as precedence from the Market Court, guidelines from the Consumer Ombudsman, ICC codes and guidelines from trade organizations must be considered.

Additionally, when advertising is directed to children, the advertising shall be designed with care and the specific rules and guidelines in the ICC International code of advertising practice must be considered. For instance, all information shall be presented with special care in a clear way so that children are not misled and it shall not exploit the inexperience or credulity of children.

Development during the recession

Advertising through television is one of the most efficient and important ways of advertising, however also one of the most expensive. In Sweden, television advertising is strictly regulated. There is only one television channel broadcasted from Sweden that is allowed to send advertising, although the advertising is restricted in terms of content and quantity. Additionally, there is a total prohibition on advertising directed to children. The prohibition stipulates that televised advertising must not be “aimed at attracting the attention of children under the age of 12”.

Nevertheless, some Swedish television channels broadcasted from other countries have been able to show televised advertising directed to children, after a decision from the Swedish Market Court (MD, 1998, p. 17), stating that the prohibition does not cover television broadcasted from other countries then Sweden. The judgment emanates from a preliminary ruling from the European Court of Justice, which establishes that the Swedish prohibition violates the EU Television without Frontiers Directive if it is applied on broadcasts from other member states.

An increasing trend lately is that many advertisers move their advertising focus from television to the internet or other digital media. The reason for this is in many cases decreasing budgets for advertising. In digital media, such as the internet, many cost efficient goals can be achieved, while still keeping customer relations on a high, if not higher, level than with television. One example is that a large Swedish television channel (broadcasted from Great Britain) no longer sends any children’s programmes, due to the decrease of advertisers willing to send advertising directed to children on television, even though it was possible from that particular channel. It seemed that the former advertisers found better solutions that directed their consumers, the children, better and more cost efficient through other media, such as the internet

When it comes to regulations, the internet is pretty much contradictory to television. Advertising directed to children on the internet is an area, where many questions still remains unsolved. Recommendations and practices have been established to cover up for the lack of sufficient statutory provisions and court rulings. Judicial proceedings regarding advertising directed to children are so far quite rare in courts.

In advertising on the internet, interactive functions, such as pictures, movies, games and downloads are becoming very common. The Consumer Ombudsman from each of the Nordic countries has taken a decision together, establishing a prohibition against advertising in computer games. Nevertheless, advertisers are continuing to use computer games for advertising. Consequently, even though the rules are stringent, they are ineffective since there is no need to obey them. The issue here is that nobody has got the authority to enforce any legal proceedings on any breach of the rules, and if an advertiser would like to avoid the rules, it can easily be done by placing the server, containing the advertising, outside the jurisdiction of the EU. Doing so, the advertiser’s only risk is to receive an angry letter from the Consumer Ombudsman, but nothing else.

Many advertisers are irritated and frustrated over the Swedish government withholding the strong protection against advertising directed to children. The problem is often that there is a misapprehension that all advertising to children is prohibited in Sweden, when it is only television advertising that is. However, advertisers are of the opinion that it is first and foremost a question of principles as well as the fact that the prohibition is inconsistent with the harmonized EU directive. Many resemblances can be made with the prohibition against advertising alcoholic beverages in Sweden. That prohibition was also inconsistent with EU law, and had to be upheld after challenged in court. Advertisers’ holds that also the prohibition against advertising directed to children on television must be upheld, while consumer protection groups are arguing that also the internet should have such a prohibition.

How the internet is used

Children under the age of 12 of today are in an increasing manner tempted to visit advertised homepages on the internet. Entertaining activities such as games, clubs and competitions are used to catch the attention of and attract the children.

Lately, there has been an increase in the amount of reports to the Consumer Ombudsman. These reports are often consisting abuses on the internet. The reasons for the increase in reports is probably that the internet is used for advertising in an increasing manner as a cost efficient substitute to television, and used by new consumer groups, such as children. Research shows that as many as up to 90 percent of children under the age of 12 are using internet today. The same research shows that 75 percent of their parents are concerned about the increase in advertising on the homepages their children are visiting, and therefore asks for better legal protection against such advertising.

Further on, there are also raised concerns in the Consumer Protection Agency regarding the development that has been taken place on the internet lately. They wish to see a new law with special updates on rules that are focusing on advertising to children on the internet.

New research from the University of Lund shows that the internet is full of advertisement that is directed especially to children, even very young children. More than half of the investigated homepages were containing advertising that was targeting children below the age of twelve. Particularly, advertising for foodstuffs, such as candy, chips, soda, ice-cream and cookies, were overwhelmingly represented.

The research also shows that the advertisement, or the product for that matter, is camouflaged in different shapes to attract the attention of the children. One example from the research is a game where one shall hunt the advertised candy with a small cartoon figure, the candy being the product and the small cartoon figure the company’s logo.

Some have held this to be an allusive way of advertising, which would be banned and illegal for children under the age of 12 taking place on television. Children must not be used due to their credulity and inexperience, something that is believed to be respected by advertisers on television, in newspapers and in magazines, however not when it comes to advertising on the internet. One reason is that there is a lack of court decisions for what kind of advertising that can be allowed on the internet.

Newly aroused phenomenon

As the internet is growing as a platform for advertising, the different ways of advertising on this platform are developing as well. A rather new phenomena becoming huge right now is advertising in communities, such as Facebook and MySpace. This kind of advertising can take a couple of different approaches; normal pop-ups, banners, sounds and videos for download.

However, these examples are quite usual ways of advertising. Special for the communities though, are something called “Word-of-mouth-marketing” or “Buzz-marketing”. Here, the advertiser tries to establish specific profiles that match their product. The advertiser will then try to establish connection with other profiles, which hopefully will start spreading positive words about the advertiser’s products. Thereafter, the many profiles can become ambassadors and friends of the advertiser, and connect even more profiles to the advertiser. In this way, the advertiser will get “free” advertisement from their existing customers to their potential costumers.

Another way of doing advertising through profiles on communities is called “stealth marketing”. Here the advertiser finds a profile on any community, or making one up themselves. Then that specific profile, having the appearance of any profile, begins to spread the word of the advertiser’s products. Many advertisers believe this to be the “black cheap” of advertisement, since there appears to be no real connection to the advertiser himself, when in fact there is, and also since it can be used to spread bad information about other’s products. In any event, there is not yet anybody being held to violate any rules when advertising their products in this way, without any identification of who the advertiser is. The reasons for this are probably first of all, that the internet lack of sufficient rules in respect of advertising, and secondly the difficulties of proving that the specific profile really are the advertiser and not anybody else.

Why the internet has become the choice of this recession

The recession has hit many lines of businesses and industries hard in Sweden. Almost everybody is trying to reduce their costs. Savings has been made in everything from the number of employees and activities for them to advertising. It seems like most companies are first and foremost focusing on customer relations, instead of employee activities.

An increasing and relatively cheap way (comparing to television advertisings etc.) to preserve old and establish new customer relations is obviously the internet. In relation to other media, the internet is extremely flexible and easy to customize with the many components, for instance systems, services and software, which can be connected with it.

In particular four factors are important in why the internet is increasing as a media for advertisement during this recession (and before):

1. 1.

   Almost anyone can produce information easily, cheaply and efficiently.

2. 2.

   It is fairly easy, cheap and efficient to distribute the information produced.

3. 3.

   Customers can efficiently find the relevant information for themselves.

4. 4.

   The internet as a platform for advertising is still rather unregulated.

That is as an advertiser, comparing with other media, it is cheap, easy and efficient to produce the relevant information with news, research, pictures, movies etc., and to distribute the information to the relevant target group, in this case children, while there are great possibilities for the children to find exactly what they are searching for, or for that reason, for the advertiser to encourage the children that their specific product is what the child is searching for. The disability of a child to see beyond the irrelevant information is the reason for Sweden to have a generally regulatory approach to advertising. However, the internet is still a grey area and not regulated more than with guidelines.

In conclusion, due to becoming more cost efficient and to avoid regulations, many advertisers are moving their advertising focus towards the internet during this recession.

Acknowledgements

Published in conjunction with the Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance (www.gala-marketlaw.com). GALA is an alliance of lawyers located throughout the world specializing in advertising and marketing law.

About the authors

Michael PlogellPartner, is in charge of the intellectual property law and marketing law departments of Wistrand. He represents both Swedish and foreign clients on questions related to disputes and agreements and is often engaged as a lecturer on intellectual property law and marketing. Michael is the Swedish representative in Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance (GALA).

Johannes Wårdman Associate of Wistrand.