Being an ... ASA Council Member

25 April 2005

In a new feature, ASA Agenda will be bringing you details of the workings behind the advertising regulatory system. By talking to ASA and CAP employees working in different parts of the organisation, we hope to give you a clearer picture on our work. In our first article in this series, our focus turns to the ASA Council ...

Being an ... ASA Council Member

Little did Pauline Thomas know when she took up her post as ASA council member six years ago that she was about to embark on a mind-altering experience.

Having left her job as marketing manager at accountancy firm Grant Thornton, she was looking for a challenging, stimulating part-time role. Furthermore, it had to fit around her busy family life and other commitments, such as being a magistrate. When she spotted an ad in The Economist for an ASA council member she immediately applied and was offered the position.

One of her first memories is being handed a list of swear words with ratings, to accompany a discussion about taste and decency in advertising. “I suddenly felt I’d led a very sheltered life and I had an inkling this was going to be a very interesting experience for me,” she chuckles.

Six years on and she looks back fondly on the hours spent debating all manner of topics from sex and religion to racism and ageism. She’s discussed the effect of underwear advertising featuring semi-naked women on sensitive Muslim audiences, the pros and cons of shock tactics and whether certain French Connection campaigns went too far.

“I can now also bore for Britain about the difference between different vacuum cleaners! I can genuinely say it’s never been dull, because the cases are always changing,” she says. Thomas adds that the council’s remit has become even more interesting since the ASA took on its extended brief to oversee broadcast advertising.

Thomas found the debates around charity advertising most difficult. Her instinct told her to try and be as tolerant of charity ads as possible. However, sometimes the council members had to take a stand against particular ads because of their detrimental effect on particular audiences.

One charity, for example, ran a campaign showing children in traumatic situations to get the message across that their aim is to help endangered and abused children. “We had to ask questions like: although they are making a valid point, is this image distressing on a poster? Who is going to see this poster? What if a child sees this poster? How will they feel, especially if they themselves are in danger or abused?”

What she’s relished most about the role is its need to see life from others’ perspectives. “I’ve looked at a whole lot of ads that I personally would ban outright, but then I’ve looked at research and talked to people and come to the conclusion that people are not upset by them,” she says.

She’s not exaggerating when she says being a council member has changed her interests and outlook on life. She’ll now sneak a peak at lads’ magazines on the newsstand, for example, which previously she would never had done. “It’s definitely made me more open minded and flexible,” she says.

Although she’s sad to be coming to the end of her second term on the council – the maximum time allowed to serve – she believes it’s essential to have a regular influx of fresh, new blood. 

There are many things she’ll miss: people sidling up to her at dinner parties ominously saying things like: “Have you seen that poster down under the Waterloo arches?”; the variety of conversations; and most of all the other council members, who she’s become close to over the years through the monthly meetings at the ASA office.

“I’m now looking for something fun and interesting to fill the gap,” she says. “But the ASA will be hard to match.”