JUNE 2007 - Political Update
By Keith Norris
Political Update is a service for members of the Marketing Association. Please circulate this report to relevant staff members in your organisation. If they would like to receive a copy direct, please ask them to email Sylvia Devlin at sylvia@marketing.org.nz.
There’s been a lot happening in the first few months of this year on the political scene. Here is a ‘plain English’ summary.
The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act (aka the anti-SPAM legislation)
The Act was passed on 5 March with a 6-month probationary period, which means it comes into effect on 5 September. The Act covers all unsolicited electronic commercial communications. The law requires that you must first have permission before sending such communications. However, permission can be either direct or inferred. You must also provide an automatic ‘opt out’ facility at no charge.
There is a full Q&A on the effects of the Act on the Marketing Association website at http://www.marketing.org.nz/cms/News/3707.
Online Sales Promotions
I’ve been fielding a lot of questions lately about sales promotions using an online medium such as TXT. You need to be aware that a sales promotion in the form of a competition with a random chance of winning may be deemed to be gambling. It’s ok to run such promotions as long as there is no added cost attached to either the promoted product or the medium of entry. Example? You are a wine company promoting your new vintage Sauvignon Blanc. The winner, who will be selected by a random draw, gets a trip to Bordeaux. All they have to do is TXT their entry. This is regarded as gambling because they have to pay to enter (by buying the wine) and there’s a random chance of winning. To run this promotion legally, you must ensure that the wine is sold at no more than its normal price and that the TXT entry cost is no more than the normal cost of a TXT message. It is important to note here that the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) regards 20c as the maximum normal cost which can be charged for the TXT entry.
Billboards
A major victory for common sense! Auckland City Council had proposed stringent bylaws which would have effectively wiped out over 60% of the outdoor billboards in the CBD. Despite lots of posturing by members of the Council Hearings Panel, they finally agreed to do what they should have done in the first place …… enforce the bylaws they’ve already got and work with industry to develop new guidelines. This work is to be carried out over the next five years.
Alcohol
In my last update I alerted you to the Review of Alcohol Advertising by a Government–appointed steering group. I’m very pleased to be able to tell you that the steering group’s recommendation to the Minister of Health was that alcohol advertising continue to be self-regulated under the jurisdiction of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). It added the rider that there be legislative underpinning of the ASA regime. There is still the matter, of course, of a Green Party Bill to ban all alcohol advertising and Martin Gallagher’s Private Member’s Bill restricting advertising hours to be dealt with.
I am chairing a multi-lateral committee to review self-regulation of packaging, merchandising and promoting alcohol products. The likely outcome of this is the introduction of an industry Code to cover these aspects of alcohol marketing.
Major Events Management Bill
The Major Events Management Bill has gone through the first stage of the Select Committee process. This legislation is designed to protect the interests of organisers and sponsors of major events like the Rugby World Cup. In general the Bill will achieve this objective. However, there are one or two aspects which seem to go too far. For instance, there is a 5km ‘clean zone’ on major transport routes (road and rail), which many people believe to be too large an area and the protection for existing businesses and advertisers is not clearly enough defined. These issues have been raised with the Select Committee and we now await their recommendations to the House.
Data Management
A bill has gone before the Administration Select Committee which recommends some changes to authorised access to the Deaths Register. The amendments have been written to regularise the arrangement that the Marketing Association has with the Registrar to incorporate the Deaths Register into the Name Removal Service, so there’s no cause for alarm here.
Access to other public registers, however, is very much under threat. Use of the LTSA motor vehicle register for marketing purposes continues to be in the spotlight and was the subject of recent media coverage.
Privacy
The Law Commission, headed by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, is conducting a review of privacy which will include data privacy legislation. However, prior to the outcome of this review, it is likely that there will be amendments to the existing Privacy Act, one of which will require an opt-out facility to be provided and observed on all one-to-one media. This has been a requirement of our DM Code of Practice for many years so shouldn’t cause a problem for members of the Marketing Association.
Australia recently introduced a federal Name Removal Service and there is currently a flurry of activity from academics like Janet Hoek and politicians like United Future MP Judy Turner to encourage our Government to follow suit. This could have a detrimental effect on outbound telemarketing and might be particularly devastating to charities and researchers. We will be opposing the concept of a state-run register. There are over 40,000 people on the Marketing Association’s Name Removal Register and we believe that we are already providing an efficient and valuable service.
If you are interested in learning more about these aspects of legislation, as well as hearing recognised experts like Peter Stubbs (Simpson Grierson) and Hilary Souter (ASA), the Marketing Association is running a series of Essential Marketing Law Updates in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. You can find more details at http://www.marketing.org.nz/cms/Events_and_Training/3620
PS: Don’t hesitate to contact me at keith@marketing.org.nz if you have a regulatory problem you’d like to discuss.
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