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Ad campaign is 'unethical'

Tecfood urged to take down billboards with images of politician

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
March 19th, 2008 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST

The ads for an energy drink - with the slogan 'You'll last longer' - featured Schwarzenberg snoozing. enlarge

When Foreign Affairs Minister Karel Schwarzenberg dozed off in the Spanish Hall during a drawn-out parliamentary session preceding the February presidential election, he unwittingly became the poster boy for a bold advertising campaign. As he nodded off to what he later called a “dignified sleep” during the opening speeches, photographers caught him in the act. Weeks later, his slumbering face was plastered on several billboards lining Prague’s highways. Exalting the stimulating effects of the energy drink Kamikaze, the billboards carried a succinct message: “You’ll last longer.”

Unfortunately, these advertisements appeared just as the ailing, 70-year-old minister was preparing for a risky heart surgery.

On March 11, the controversial billboards came under review by the Advertising Council, a watchdog organization monitoring local advertising ethics.

Voicing concern over the billboards’ questionable ethics, the council urged the company Tecfood, which manufactures the energy drink, to take them down.

According to Advertising Council Managing Director Ladislav Šťastný, Tecfood’s campaign directly violates several articles of the organization’s code of ethics. “A basic [council] requirement for all advertisements is that they be decent, fair and truthful. They must be created with a regard for consumers and society,” he said. “Also, an advertisement cannot endanger the reputation of the advertising industry as a whole.”

In response, Tecfood representatives apologized for any unintended harm the campaign may have caused and have promised to remove the billboards. “It certainly was not our intention to put up the billboards during Schwarzenberg’s hospitalization,” said Tecfood Marketing Manager Jaroslav Dostalík. “These campaigns are planned months ahead of time. When we approved it, the media was not discussing the minister’s health problems. The current situation is therefore fairly unpleasant for us.”

The billboard campaign, he adds, was the latest in a series of advertisements centered around the recent election. During the unsuccessful first round, in which members of Parliament struggled to stay focused on voting, Tecfood representatives began distributing energy drinks inscribed with election-oriented slogans such as “Don’t sleep — vote!” and “Hold on longer!” attempting to get the products into the Spanish Hall by handing them to politicians.

“The goal was to give lawmakers a bit of a boost so they would last through the final round of the election,” Dostalík said, adding that the campaign was initially well received by both the public and media.

During the presidential elections, “politicians enacted an appalling show in the eyes of the public,” he said. “The only thing people could do was make fun of the politicians.”

However, Dostalík pointed out, the use of Schwarzenberg’s photo should not be interpreted as a personal attack against him. “On the contrary, we used his image because we know him to be one of the few Czech politicians who is open-minded and has a sense of humor,” Dostalík said. “If we had used some other politician under the same circumstances, we undoubtably would already have a lawsuit on our desk.”

Despite the campaign’s awkward timing, Foreign Affairs Ministry officials have not lost their sense of humor when commenting on the situation. According to Dostalík, the convalescent Schwarzenberg, who intends to return to office this month, personally complimented Tecfood for the advertisement and invited the company to continue with similar campaigns.

“Schwarzenberg doesn’t mind,” said ministry spokeswoman Zuzana Opletalová. “As I’ve jokingly said before, the advertisement is misleading. The minister isn’t sleeping — he’s just thinking.”

On March 11, Schwarzenberg himself told the daily Právo, “Let people have their fun,” adding that he’d been using the advertisement to entertain hospital staff.

A fine line

According to Šťastný, removing the controversial billboards is in Tecfood’s own best interests. As a self-regulatory organization comprised of industry professionals, the Advertising Council can only recommend — not order — Tecfood to halt the campaign. “The council’s goal is to compel the subject responsible for a controversial advertisement to self-regulate, thus preventing lawsuits by an afflicted third party,” Šťastný said.

While a majority of the cases judged by the Advertising Council center around consumer protection, controversial advertisements featuring politicians are not a rarity. In 1997, for example, the organization criticized a billboard advertisement for the energy drink Erektus, which read, “We’re with you, Bill!” in reference to the sex scandal involving former U.S. President Bill Clinton and intern Monica Lewinsky. Even religious figures have not been exempt. The same year, billboard advertisements for Erektus pictured Pope John Paul II peaking up a leggy woman’s skirt, with the message, “When you want more than you can have.”

Typically, the Advertising Council reviews individual cases based on complaints filed by a third party. Reviewing the Tecfood billboards, however, was the council’s own initiative. “Although many of our members sympathized with Tecfood and appreciated the advertisement’s humorous message, we could not ignore the fact that it was a flagrant violation of one of our basic principles,” Šťastný said. “Our code of ethics specifically states that an advertisement cannot use a political figure for commercial purposes, with or without that person’s consent.”

In response to the Advertising Council’s ruling, which he described as “rigid,” Dostalík invited the organization to an open debate about advertising ethics, adding that the ruling will not impede Tecfood’s future campaigns.

“We wish Karel Schwarzenberg a speedy recovery,” he added. “We hope that he lasts in politics as long as possible.”

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com

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