Ryanair has had it's fair share of criticism from the Advertising Standards Authority this year. Earlier in the spring it had it's knuckles rapped over adverts showing attractive young women in various states of undress. It was on a calendar, a bit like that moonbears calendar that a group of veterinary nurses produced a couple of years ago to highlight the plight of moonbears in the far east and which my wife Caroline brought back for me from BVNA Congress to adorn the wall of my office.

I've attached the picture of the Ryanair calendar below so that you can form your own view. If the majority of Vetpol users object to it I will of course take the picture down . Apparently, Ryanair tried to defend itself by saying that it also included pictures of men with their kit off; sorry....I don't have that picture, nor do I want it.

Attractive Sacks

I recently had a conversation with someone about the advertising of intramammary products; managing them for a well-known veterinary pharmaceutical company was something I used to do earlier in my career. With only two exceptions, in my entire career I have only ever received criticism for any adverts for prescription only medicines if I had been involved with a campaign that was less effective than the competitor ads; and then of course the complaints came from our most loyal customers.

Whilst discussing intramammaries once, one of our customers said to me, "...what you want to do with your advertising is put a big pair of tits on it." He mentioned an example of an advert for sacks that used to regularly appear in Farmers Weekly. This ad always had a picture of a girl with no clothes on. Of course it was nothing to do with sacks but the ad is famous, even now: There's even a section on the Farmer's Weekly site saying "do you remember the Abertay Sacks Adverts."

Raising Awareness

The thing is, it's a fair cop, I do remember the Abertay Sacks adverts; I can't help it, I'm a heterosexual bloke. Whatever my view on the ethics may be it's hard-wired into my brain that I will subconsciously respond to images like that and I saw the Abertay Sacks advert so often that it's even working now. I didn't have to think about what to type into Google search, I knew the name Abertay Sacks and probably always will. A lot of farmers, a dysproportionate number of whom are men, will also be aware of Abertay Sacks for ever. When I used to call on farms regularly a good few of them had similar calendars in their dairys, no doubt brightening their mucky days just as the moonbears calendar brightened my office.

The more frequently you see an advert in association with something memorable the more likely you are to remember it. That's the way advertising works: It's more often there to raise awareness than to stimulate an impulse purchase, as for example is the function of sales promotion or point-of-sale-advertising, which will often include a compelling offer and a price.

The issue of putting pictures of unclothed girls on adverts for intrammaries is unlikely to arise again in the UK: This Autumn, after discussions with European colleagues, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate has reviewed its previous position on allowing advertising of antibacterials to farmers as "professional keepers of animals" and come to the decision to ban it. That's partly because of concerns about antibacterial resistance, but also because under European law, the advertising of POM(V)s to consumers is illegal; European colleagues apparently saw farmers as consumers not as "professional keepers of animals". The reason why the advertising is illegal is because it has the potential to cause harm and may incentivise consumers to unwittingly break laws designed to protect them, animals, the environment or something else; and of course some will do it knowingly as we saw in the recent Eurovet case investigated and prosecuted by VMD.

Inappropriate advertising of price

This Autumn Ryanair has been criticised again by the Advertising Standards Authority for lack of transparency in pricing. This related to the pricing of its flights in a national press advert. A complainant contacted the ASA on the grounds that the price was misleading because customers faced hidden charges that could only be avoided by paying with a Ryanair pre-paid currency card, which customers would incur costs in obtaining. The small print stated that the advertised fair excluded "optional fees/charges" which would be avoided by paying using the pre-paid cash card. But the ASA pointed out that consumers had to apply for the card, await delivery and load the card with £150 which would mean they'd probably miss out on the sales promotion. The issue wasn't that Ryanair was advertising a price which was objectionable to the ASA; they didn't mind them advertising a price, it was the fact that the advertised price was misleading.

Department of Business Innovation and Skills

Interestingly, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (DBIS) is currently analysing responses to a consultation on banning "above cost" payment surcharges and it will be interesting to see what they make of them. It's a fact though that prices of products are advertised and they are advertised for a reason; they are advertised for the purpose of sales promotion and to stimulate impulse purchase which is why the DBIS has been taking such an interest in them recently.

Advertising Prices of POM(V)s

With POM(V)s, according to the way VMD sets out its guidance in VMD Guidance Note 4 (last updated in September 2011) controls on advertising of medicines, VMD defines an advertisement for a veterinary medicinal product as "any sort of activity that promotes a veterinary medicinal product."

It does state that "Price lists of products are not considered to be advertising material.." but with the caveat that only if one product does not feature more prominently than the rest. VMD guidance note 4 says they may be placed in public areas but also states clearly that care should be taken to ensure that size, colour, formatting and font are consistent so that no product features more prominently than the rest. Whatever the intention is, if you highlight products and put them in front of the consumer the chances are that this will promote the products, especially if you drop the price of certain products, and this would be illegal according to VMD's present definition.

Price is often used to advertise products

So you can use an advertised price to promote a product; just because you don't include anything else about the product that doesn't mean the particular communication isn't an advertisement. If you say "Coca Cola 50p" people who previously have had experience of that brand and consider they may use the product again get the point of what you're telling them and this will promote, i.e. advertise the product. One of the issues with internet advertising of medicines is that customers searching for branded products on the internet are often offered nothing other than price to make their choice on.

One man's "freedom fighter" is another man's terrorist. You can stick people in Guantanamo bay define them as "illegal combatants" and claim that half drowning them isn't torture but at the end of the day you're splitting hairs. And in the same way one man's "consumer champion" advertising prescription products from some off shore location where medicines regulations are lax or non-existent and the tax burden lower is always going to be able to sell more cheaply than a domestic supplier. Just as keeping Abu Qatada in the UK imposes the cost of "regulating" him on the UK taxpayer medicines regulators need to be careful about over-regulating domestic suppliers of veterinary medicines and driving UK consumers into the arms of "offshore consumer champions."

Finding the balance between coming down hard on legitimate channels and therefore effectively favouring illegitimate and unscrupulous operators is a difficult balancing act and I'm sure we'll see more debate on it.

Why do people advertise?....because it works

At the end of the day advertising works, you can do it lots of different ways, including using price as an advertising mechanism and by associating your named product, or service with something else not directly related to the product. Just as I'm always going to remember Abertay Sacks I doubt I will ever forget moonbears. I guess if I wanted to advertise intramammaries now my best bet would be to pick an offshore internet site, adorn it with some pictures of people with no clothes on, plus the name of the product and just the price. I'm guessing that would work.

So where can I buy another moonbears calendar then? Who's the cheapest supplier? Maybe I should google it.