May all your Christmas ads be right

The Radiocentre Clearance team celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.

We have processed nearly 30,000 scripts for broadcast in 2016. This year was also the first birthday of the Clearance Team’s Trustmark initiative, a badge for advertisers and radio stations to further reassure listeners that they can trust advertising messages they hear on commercial radio. All radio ads for special category advertisers must be pre-vetted and approved by the Clearance team at Radiocentre and the Trustmark is a reminder of that.

The UK Code of Broadcast Advertising* recognises that some radio advertising sectors need special care to avoid having a detrimental effect on listeners. One such sector is alcohol products. This inevitably leads to some interesting discussions among the Clearance Team at Christmas. We have to be mindful of the fact that as soon as Santa Claus rocks up in a spot, that spot will automatically be of interest to children, so he should be used with caution. An appearance of the red-suited mirth bringer has forced us to turn down ads in the past for casinos and alcohol.

One memorable campaign for home brewing featured a not-Santa who was nevertheless described as male, booming of voice, and was pretty liberal with the “ho ho ho”; a Claus by any other name? We’ve also been accused in the past of trying to cancel Christmas. A newspaper contacted us to establish exactly why we had decided it appropriate to ban Christmas carols from radio advertising. We explained that there was nothing to stop, for example, a shopping centre from advertising its carol service with a few bars of Oh Come, All Ye Faithful. However, a company trying to communicate its knock-down prices on seasonal vodka through the appropriation of a yuletide hymn, was only liable to offend. The effects of the BCAP code really are to separate out the religious roots of the Christmas festival from its more secular or commercial manifestations. And while we’re on the subject, it’s worth remembering that although Christmas is the season to be merry, the rules governing the inclusion of alcohol in ads still apply.

Treatments about getting royally sauced at the annual office shindig won’t be acceptable for broadcast outside of a road safety campaign, however true-to-life they may be. The only commercial messages likely to get on air that involve people in their cups would be for taxi services framing such insobriety with a message about getting home safely. So really the world of clearance at Christmas is the same as everywhere else. Have fun, but don’t get carried away, or it may all end in tears. *BCAP Code, www.cap.org.uk/Advertising-Codes/Broadcast.aspx