RIDICULOUS ADVERTISING STANDARDS AUTHORITY

Leo Grobler

Dear Consumers,  
         The ASA has been set up by its media members to police advertising to protect you the South Africa public.

         Here’s how well it does it and how utterly ridiculous it is.

         Ridiculous website: Being years out of date it is a shocking advertisement for advertising and an indictment on the media organisations that fund it. Examples: The latest Annual Report is for 2007/8; Statistics are for 2009/2010; Ad-Alerts were last issued in 2010 and its most recent Precedent Manual which it was proud to announce has rulings made six years ago.

        

MSIBI - no joke

The ASA’s Chief Executive Officer Thembi Msibi was reported as saying; "The website is undergoing changes and will be relaunched at a date yet to be confirmed."  That was another example of how ridiculous the ASA is because that was more than a year and half ago.

Ridiculous Preamble to its Code of Advertising Practice: This lists its very admirable requirements for advertising such as being legal, truthful, prepared with a sense of responsibility to the consumer and that it should not bring advertising into disrepute or reduce confidence in it. But the rider tells us that none of these requirements can be used as a basis for a complaint. So what they are there for is anybody’s guess.

Ridiculous ruling it can’t enforce: That’s the background to the ridiculous way my complaints were handled. A Tshwane University of Technology Professor Rudi de Lange complained about the claims made by a Dr Semba on his own website. De Lange believed the title “Dr” was used to make the ad more believable.

         Semba said he could cure epilepsy, high blood pressure and other ailments with his psychic powers and he undertook to solve the problem of miscarriages by warding off any spirit or demon that has been tormenting your productivity.

         According to the ASA website De Lange submitted, in essence that the advertiser does not hold substantiation as proof that his methods have the ability to cure the diseases mentioned. As such, the advertiser exploits consumer’s superstitions and beliefs.

         He quoted clauses of the ASA’s Code of Advertising Practice to back his complaint.

         The ASA decided that as it had not been able to get a response from Semba it had to go on what De Lange had submitted. Clause 4.1 required advertisers to hold substantiation for any claims made in their advertisements. But in this case the advertiser did not produce any proof of this in spite of being asked to do so.

         The Ridiculous ASA ruled that Dr Semba had to withdraw his ad with “immediate effect” even though it has no power to control these. Two months or more later the ad was still on the internet unchanged.

         "Our enforcement abilities are somewhat limited at present," Leo Grobler the ASA’s Manager, Dispute Resolutions told me referring to online advertising.

As I understand it the ASA can only control advertising placed with its media members.

         As part of its ruling the Ridiculous ASA made this admission that it was concerned about the proliferation of charlatan healers who used unregulated forms of the media like the internet to promoted their businesses based on unsubstantiated claims.

         "The ASA has ruled against such advertisements on numerous occasions in recent years,"it went on. "And it is hoped that the appropriate authorities will address this issue, as it is no doubt causing harm to the credibility of legitimate healers and practitioners and this industry at large."

         THIS BOLD STATEMENT BECAME EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS WHEN YOU READ WHAT MY EXPERIENCE WAS.

         My post of 4 December 2013 headed THE CITIZEN'S ALADDIN’S CAVE OF UNBELIEVABLE ADVERTS (Dubious Ads)exposed the fact that this Johannesburg based, daily paper carried pages of smalls ads that made claims similar to the ones Dr Semba was making.

         Even the paper’s Editor Steven Motale agreed with me that they were not believable.

         So as the paper was still carrying them more than two months after my post appeared unchallenged I complained to the ASA about them.

         I submitted pages of these ads taken from the February 26 and March 4 2014 editions of The Citizen together with a report from The Times about the De Lange ruling. I pointed out that the ads were clearly unbelievable and that many of them involved people calling themselves “Dr” or giving themselves other titles which were also clearly not true. I pointed out that the paper’s Editor had agreed the ads were not believable.

         Grobler replied saying that I had to submit a separate complaint for each ad and each advertiser would then be asked to comment before the ASA made a ruling.

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         As a test I started with six individual ones and I also said there could be as many as 50. But I didn’t get very far.                                                
         The first one concerned Baba Meseko’s unbelievable promises to enable you to get rich easily; have a lucky wallet to get R10 000 everyday; bring back lost lover etc, all 100% Guaranteed.

         The reasons I gave for my complaints were that the promises of easy money were obviously not true and nor was the guarantee to bring back lost lover.

I also submitted that the ad did not comply with various Clauses of the ASA’s Code of Conduct and I gave four examples.

One of them was that according to Clause 4.2.1 headed Misleading Claims an ad should not contain anything that is likely to mislead the consumer.

Another one that I quoted was 4.1 headed Substantiation. This stipulates that before advertising is published all advertisers must have documentary evidence to support all claims that are capable of objective substantiation. 

This was exactly the same one De Lange used as part of his complaint.

Having told me that the ASA is required to act as a neutral and independent arbiter and that complainants were not required to prove their case but were expected to clearly make their case, Grobler kicked this one of mine into touch as well as all my other ones, which were very similar.                        

"You are telling us how you perceived the ad, but you have not yet articulated on what basis you believe that the advertiser has contravened the provisions of the Code," he told me.

This sounded like an echo of a reply I got some time ago from Puseletso Mahlangu, a Consultant in his department, when I had complained about get-rich-quick ads in the Sunday Times. She told me: "The letters of complaint clearly identify the aspects of the advertising you find objectionable, however you offer no grounds of complaint as far as the advertising is concerned."

YOU HAVE TO GO SOME TO GET MORE RIDICULOUS THAN THAT.

And the fact that Grobler refused to consider my complaints any further on the grounds that they were "not properly motivated" was even more ridiculous if one looks at the ASA’s Ad-Alert list on its website. This is sent to all aspects of the media to ensure that those with an adverse ruling, who have not responded, can not advertise again. Significantly nearly half those on the list of 19 were traditional healers with names not unlike those in the ads I complained about. Here are some of them Dr M.K Bumba, Prof John & Mama Mai, Dr Phamy Rehema, Prof Wakho and so on.

Could it be that the"neutral and independent arbiter" standard set by the ASA got affected by previous posts on my blog that were highly critical of the ASA.

Or was it that a complaint from a university professor carried more weight than any of mine?

My post about the get-rich-quick ads in the Sunday Times was headed Advertising Standards Authority’s bungling, bunglers.

         In that case my three complaints were accepted but they then apparently got lost due to various problems. With the result that nearly a year and half later Grobler apologised saying that because of the delays they were unable to finish what they started.

         Like all good police forces the ASA police don’t get off their butts until there is a complaint and as none of mine have been accepted it can justify turning a blind eye to what is going on at The Citizen. So it looks as though the paper, that claims to tell the truth and nothing but the truth in its editorial side, can go on making money punting these fairy tales in its ads to its gullible readers.

         THAT DEAR CONSUMERS IS HOW THE ASA PROTECTS YOU FROM UNSCRUPULOUS ADVERTISERS. AND THAT’S HOW REALLY ‘CONCERNED’ THE ASA IS ABOUT THE ‘PROLIFERATION OF CHARLATAN HEALERS.’
         TO ME THE ASA LOOKS LIKE A NEWSPAPER PROTECTION SOCIETY THAT IS NOT UNBIASED AT ALL BECAUSE ALL THOSE ADS IN THE CITIZEN ARE EARNING IT A LOT OF MONEY.

         Oh I nearly forgot. Grobler told me that the ASA’s jurisdiction did not empower it to prevent newspapers from accepting ads of this kind. That shows once again how ridiculous it is. He suggested I contact the Print & Digital Media SA (PDMSA) which has "some say over the business practices of publications."

         So this is what I did. Is the PDMSA just as ridiculous as the ASA? You’ll have to read my next post for the answer to that.

         Regards,

        Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman

P.S. Before I published this I sent it to Grobler. I invited him to make factual corrections and to comment if he wished. I got no reply.

Advertising Standards Authority's bungling, bunglers

Dear Investors,

CEO Msibi

         The South African Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is there to police the advertising industry. But in my experience it is a toothless and an extremely incompetent organisation, staffed by people who haven’t a clue about what they are doing.

         What’s more it advertises its inefficiency on its website with an out of date 2007/8 Annual Report.

         My complaints to it were relatively simple. I will deal with them in two parts.

         Part 1 concerned three small ads that appeared in the Sunday Times towards the end of 2011. They contained unbelievable, get-rich-quick promises that so often dupe pensioners and the less well off into losing their life savings.

         Since 2009 I had been campaigning (See: Noseweek exposes Dearjon letter) to get this paper to stop running these ads (see example) as I believed that by doing so it was helping crooks to fleece people. 

         But as my efforts had so far been unsuccessful I decided to try and get the ASA to rule against these ads.

         I had every reason to have confidence in the ASA as it maintains that it regulates all advertising and that all advertisements should be legal, decent, honest and truthful.

         Another of its impressive claims is that no advertisement should bring advertising into disrepute or reduce confidence in it.

         What happened after that was hard to believe. The ASA itself blew my confidence in it sky high and made nonsense of its boast that it was there to ensure that all ads are honest and truthful.

         30/1/2012: Leon Grobler: Manager Dispute Resolutions confirmed he had received my three complaints and added that if an ad appeared in a newspaper they were empowered to have it removed even if the advertiser refused to do it himself.

I'm sure you've heard the expression, 'If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.' Well in the investment world, I say, 'If it sounds too good to be  true, it definitely is.'
                                                                                 1997 Washington Times

         3/2/2012: Phumzile Mhlonngo: Adminstrator Complaints Assessment, emails me with these reference numbers 19581, 19581 (should have been 2) and 19583 and this nonsensical statement: We note that your complaint refers to a Sunday Times advertisement. Please note that the ASA deals with and investigates specific advertisements.

         She went on to say they couldn’t investigate my complaint because I had not made it clear as to why I thought the ad was misleading and not true. I then sent a revised complaint.

         7/2/2012: Lindiwe Hlatshwayo tells me they are proceeding with their investigation.

         29/2/2012: A very official letter arrives signed by Puseletso Mahlangu, Consultant: Dispute Resolution, telling me among other things that my complaints, with the same numbers as I had originally been given, had been sent to the advertisers for written comment.

         Part 2: This concerned the Sunday Times’ own WARNING ad (see example) that it carried next to the get-rich-quick ads.  I felt it was

hypocritical of the paper to tell readers to carefully scrutinise ads offering investment opportunities as the paper could not vouch for the claims made by advertisers, when it continued to carry ones that were clearly dishonest.

         That elicited more ASA gobbledegook with Clinton Chetty: Administrator Assistant replying: Please note we do not deal with Business practice issues or ‘warnings’. We can only deal with content of a specific advertisement. We suggest you address your concerns with the newspaper directly.

         I then asked Grobler for the email address of his Chief Executive Thembi Msibi and he gave it to me. But when that didn’t work I went back to him and he replied that that was the only one he had, but I could try her PA Rebecca Motubatse.

         I asked Rebecca to pass on the email I had been trying to send to Msibi. It said, Some members of your staff don’t understand certain complaints and dismiss them out of hand on the grounds that they do not comply with your mandate when they clearly do.

         After several requests for an answer Rebecca replied a month later saying she will investigate my complaint tomorrow with the relevant individuals before giving it to the CEO.

         I don’t know if it was ever given to Msibi, but if it was she did not contact me. I got an email from Mahlangu on 17/7/2012 apologising for lack of correspondence. She told me that they had to contact the advertiser before they could make a ruling and these cases often took a long time to resolve.

         It hadn’t dawned on anybody at the ASA that if crooks are involved they will never get a reply.

         She added that they had approached the newspaper for a response and that they held the advertiser and not the newspaper responsible.

         So with their crazy system a crook can go on promoting a dishonest investment scheme in a paper while the ASA takes no action if the advertiser hasn’t replied to a complainant’s allegations.

One investor was Veronica Diedricks , a mother of two, who put her R250 000

Diedericks

pension pay out into Whoopee (see advert above) and lost the lot.

         Nobody seemed to have realised that one of my complaints concerned the Sunday Times’ own ad.  So in that case the advertiser and the paper were one and the same.

         My complaints were then misfiled, ignored or lost for almost a year. I had forgotten all about them when suddenly, out of the blue, I got an email dated 22/5/2013 from Mahlangu.

This took the ASA’s gobbledegook prize of the year in spite of stiff competition.

         She once again apologised for the delays and blamed them on changes in staff and misfiling which resulted in some of the files loosing time.

         Her other excuse was that they had not received a response from the advertiser.

         She then came up with these gems that showed that if the ASA has any standard at all it is at rock bottom. The letters of complaint clearly identify the aspects of the advertising that you find objectionable however; you offer no grounds of complaint as far as the advertising is concerned.

         In each case you highlight the areas where you believe that the advertiser’s operations are untrustworthy. It is for this reason that we cannot rule on the matters and our files will now be shelved.

       

  In desperation I complained to Kate O’Regan, the former Constitutional Court Judge who is now the President of the ASA. I said I had come to her because I had found that to get any joy out of the CEO is hopeless.

         She replied that she had no effective executive role in the ASA but she would pass on my email. And she certainly got some action.

         Grobler replied to me full of apologies saying that because of the delays they were unable to procedurally finish what we started.  He said my experience was the exception rather than the rule and as the buck stops with him he was left with my foot and a healthy slice of humble pie in my mouth.

         And while Grobler must be lauded for his frank admissions and determination to see that this does not happen again I can’t agree that the buck stops with him.

         The buck stops with the Chief Executive Officer Thembi Msibi. I’m not sure if she was told about what happened, but if she wasn’t then her role as CEO needs a lot to be desired. And it’s even worse if her PA told her about it as she promised.

         Yours,

         A disgusted Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman & Consumer Watchdog. 

P.S. The ASA is a self regulating body, but when you have the police, policing themselves it is most undesirable. 

P.P.S. In spite of the ASA’s total incompetence it looks as though my campaign has worked, although the Sunday Times will never admit it. I haven’t seen one of those dubious investment ads in the paper for ages, but the ridiculous WARNING is still there.