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AMERICAS: PARAGUAY

Ethics vs. Advertisement
Author: María Antonia Gwynn, BERKEMEYER - Attorneys and Counselors

CERNECO ("Provisions, Regulations and Study of Communication Centre") is in charge of regulating advertising issues and of promoting fair competition by having their members sign an ethical pact to abide by the provisions of the Advertising Self Regulatory Code of this institution.

Among the members of CERNECO we can find a vast variety of commercial companies such as wide circulation newspaper companies; pharmaceutical labs; tobacco, food, soft drink and alcoholic beverages companies; gas station/petroleum companies; banks; law firms; television and radio networks; publicity agencies, supermarket chains; air travel companies; restaurants; and social clubs.

In 2006, the company WATSON launched into the market an advertising campaign to promote its tonic water. This advertising campaign consisted of a graphic advertisement of the product showing a woman holding a bottle of water near her inner thighs, dressed and posing in a very provocative manner and saying “Si Papa “ (“Yes Daddy”). The campaign was published through various media such as magazines, newspaper, and the most questioned mean, giant billboards along the main roads of the city.

The root of the problem was that, for Paraguay´s idiosyncrasy forged with a very chauvinistic culture, the expression “Yes Daddy” had a subliminal message; whilst the advertisement tended to show a teenage girl obeying her dad, the provocative manner of dressing and pose of the women also had the intention of showing women´s obedience towards men in general.

The formal complaint against this advertisement was filed by the Consumer Defense Department of the Municipality and by the Women´s Secretariat (a public entity dependent from the Executive in charge of the protection of women rights); in which it was claimed that by being the voice of the majority of the women in the country, they repudiated, recriminated and disagreed with this advertisement for being discrimanotry against women and because it infringed the moral values of family relationship since it wanted to contrast said sexual content with a father-daughter relationship aggraviated by using women as an “object”.

On August 26, 2006 a formal complaint was filed to CONAR, the regulatory body dependent of CERNECO requesting the suppression and immediate removal of all the advertisements of WATSON that contained the expression “Yes Daddy” for violating women’s and family rights based not only on provisions of the Advertising Self Regulatory Code of this institution, but also based on basic principles of the Constitution, and International Treaties ratified by Paraguay.

In spite of the fact that WATSON was a member and CONAR would have been the judge over the supression of its advertising campaign, CONAR acted unbiased in resolving the complaint of a nature beyond commerce because it was affecting social and ethical interests of the society.

Although the prelude of CONAR´s ruling was that “no human being can be subject to any form of repression notwithstanding of being a woman or man. The equality right and the human dignity are guarantees of constitutional order”, the main grounds of the ruling were based on the Advertising Self Regulatory Code that contained specific provisions regarding the prohibition to use advertisement that would contravene social conditions, or induced inferiority or discriminated treatment towards people.

It was found that the advertisement did not relate to the product qualities itself, on the contrary, it was used to try to position and promote the product by using a metaphoric and alegoric association mechanism that for the aforementioned reasons were an attempt on a person’s dignity.

The expression “Yes Daddy” jointly with a clear exposure of sexual character showed the clear determination of the announcing party to exploit the will of the consumer through metaphors such as the inferiority and repressive condition of the women.

Furthermore, the Advertising Self Regulatory Code sets forth that every advertisement must be subject to the moral, good customs and the public policy. When analyzing each element in particular, the ruling found that the public’s morality was formed by the public´s opinion and dominant ideas that comprehended human respect and that the good customs were set by the rules of society during a specific time and place.

The fact that every women group or association in the country had expressed the total rejection and disagreeement against the advertisement campaign, was considered a disruption and violation of the moral order that integrated the ethics that prevail in the country, ethics that regulate the general behaviour of the mass.

Therefore, considering all the elements and the ethics of a particular time and place at stake, the advertisement was found to be in violation of the Constitution and of the Advertising Self Regulatory Code and its principles.

It was also resolved that such ruling be made public through the media and although WATSON was not legally bound to abide this private entity´s ruling, the social pressure and the expulsion of WATSON as member of CERNECO (if it did not comply with the ruling) were facts that would have given a very negative impact on the product and the company, those were strong enough reasons for WATSON´s decision to remove all the advertisements and utterly change its advertising campaign.

It was a landmark ruling which enforced the basic principles of humanity and how ironic it is to state that the enforcement was performed pursuant to a self regulatory code based on a non compelling ruling but that was no hindrance to refresh these principles in the Paraguayan society.