- I have lodged several complaints against adverts in South
Africa for targeting children. The first was against another Nokia ad showing
a 12-year-old girl talking on a cellphone with a big smile on her face,
with the payoff line: "A grown-up phone for everyone" (sic).
Nokia denied that this advert was aimed at children, although it was placed
in the entertainment section of a weekly newspaper and in other family
newspapers. The ASA rejected my complaint on that occasion, but made a
recommendation that no advertising of cellphones be undertaken to under-16s
for "non-essential purposes". Then Nokia placed another ad in
conjunction with a TV channel carrying education material aimed at children
from the age of 14 (as I was informed by the channel). This complaint was
upheld.
-
- I had argued strongly that the original "grown-up
phone for everyone" ad targeted children as the ultimate consumer
of the product, even if Nokia said the ad was aimed at parents. Nokia have
run several other ads showing young people using their phones, and featuring
games and music functions, so I believe a pattern has been established
of this company targeting young people.
-
- I know rense.com has carried several good articles on
the dangers of cellphones, so I hope you find this interesting. I saw you
carried an article on a South African man whose trees were bending away
from a nearby cellphone mast -- I have interviewed him and written a couple
of stories about that case, he now has leukaemia, and I am uncovering clusters
of leukaemias around cellphone masts in Johannesburg that are truly alarming.
-
- I wish you all the best, and keep up the good work. Please
let me know if there's any more information you need. Happy New Year!
-
- Yours
Karl Muller
-
-
- ASA Rules Again Nokia Cell Phone Advertisement
-
- By Noor-Jehan Yoro Badat
Saturday Star Johannesburg, South Africa
December 18 2004 (verbatim)
-
- Judgment day has arrived for a Nokia print advertisement
when it was slapped with an Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruling
for targeting children.
-
- In August, Karl Muller -- a technical radio expert and
former physics lecturer -- lodged a consumer complaint against a print
advertisement that was put out by Nokia and appeared in a "Mindset
Learn" booklet distributed with the Sunday Times TV magazine.
-
- Muller said in his complaint that the advertisement,
which declared "WIN! A NOKIA 2300 & STARTER PACK!!", showed
two smiling teenagers with a cellphone and extolled such features of the
phone as a built-in FM radio, polyphonic ringtones, "three exciting
games", and animated screen-savers.
-
- The advert read in part: "Are you looking for a
fun and stylish way to stay in touch with your friends? The Nokia 2300's
cool new design and features will make you the envy of everyone."
-
- This, said Muller, "specifically targets viewers
of the DStv Mindset Learn channel, which is aimed at teenagers from 14
years of age".
-
- His formal complaint further argued that "it has,
on a previous occasion, been suggested by the ASA that advertising for
cellphones should not be aimed at children under the age of 16.
-
- "This advertisement, however, has no indication
that children under 16 should not enter."
-
- Muller was quoted in the Pretoria News earlier this year
as claiming that despite "warnings from eminently qualified and respected
doctors and scientists that children should avoid cellphones, companies
such as Nokia are aggressively targeting children and teenagers."
-
- He said: "In the absence of any warnings or action
from the South African medical or regulatory authorities, it is up to individuals
to protect themselves and their children from becoming guinea pigs in what
has been described as 'the biggest experiment ever on the human race --
the bathing of entire populations in microwave radiation'."
-
- Muller had told the ASA that "a deluge of clinical
and scientific studies has shown that cellphone microwave radiation may
be a severe health risk, particularly to children".
-
- "The intention of this complaint," said Muller,
"as with others I have lodged with the ASA, is to ensure that clear
and unambiguous ruling is made on this issue which the entire industry
will be forced to acknowledge and abide by."
-
- The ASA judgment found that the advertisement "therefore
appears [on the surface] to appeal to children for non-essential purposes".
-
- It then made the following main points:
-
- * "It appears that cellphones are potentially dangerous
to children"; * "The advertisement targets children"; and
* "It advertises cellphones for non-essential purposes."
-
- In light of the above, the ASA said the advertiser was
required to "withdraw the advertisement in its current format";
that "the process of withdrawing this advertisement must be actioned
with immediate effect"; and that it "must be completed within
the deadlines stipulated in Clause 15.3 of the Procedural Guide".
Finally, "the advertisement may not be used again in future".
-
- For Muller, the judgment was a big victory.
-
- "To the best of my knowledge, this ruling is the
first acknowledgment by any authority in South Africa that there may be
dangers, especially for children, in using cellphones," he said. "Not
a single doctor has spoken up in this country about possible risks.
-
- "The Advertising Standards Authority [members] have
correctly said that they are not in a position to adjudicate whether cellphones
pose a health risk.
-
- "But by adopting the precautionary principle employed
by governments overseas they have done a great service to the public.
-
- "Nokia, which has now been judged to have advertised
to children, is exposing itself to possible huge claims for health damages,
because kids now using their products will, without question, begin to
manifest various forms of illness in the future, including attention deficit
disorders, learning and concentration problems, and chronic fatigue."
-
- Lindi Tshabangu, public relations and communications
officer for RF Groups, Nokia's South African distribution, said the Mindset
Learn channel had approached Nokia to sponsor the advert prizes.
-
- "The advertisement was placed by Mindset, and we
had been told that it was targeted for Grades 10 to 12," said Tshabangu.
-
- "As a Nokia policy, we do not target children under
the age of 16. When we received a complaint lodged to the Advertising Standards
Authority over the advert, we immediately pulled the ad".
-
-
- Comment
Alton Raines
1-5-5
-
- You wanna hear scary? My step-daughter who is eighteen
had a friend over recently. He was showing off his new cellphone and said
the following:
-
- "You know, it's weird. I know when my cell phone
is going to ring before it does, especially if its sitting on my night
stand and I'm in bed. It's not a premonition or anything, I can actually
feel this part of my skull vibrate just a little just before it plays its
ringtone." He pointed to his temple.
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