The legitimate demand of Rabbonim and public figures in the
Torah-observant community to curb lewd advertising, has not
been welcomed by the advertising agencies, for obvious
reasons. But now the ad men are going on the offensive. An
article, which recently appeared in the financial daily
Globes, reported that Udi Fridan, the director general
of the Reuveni-Fridan advertising firm is attempting to spur
the Advertising Association to promote the legislation of the
Freedom of Advertising Law.
In the first stage, they intend to set up a Council for
Freedom of Advertising, whose purpose will be to "prevent
self-interested parties from intervening in advertising
content." The initiative began more than six months ago in
reaction to efforts to legislate limitations on
advertisements for tobacco and alcohol, the participation of
children in advertisements, and restrictions following
personal intervention of the Torah-observant community.
This council is supposed to include various factors,
including advertisers, and representatives of bodies who
oppose religious coercion.
"The central assumption is that it is inconceivable for the
law to restrict the advertisement policies of a product which
may be sold and marketed," says Freidan.
"Various bodies want to impose their views on the advertising
field, under the guise of the ideal of safeguarding the
citizen. The chareidim know how to exploit this situation.
They want groups concerned about smoking, to pass laws in
the Knesset related to the limiting of cigarette ads, in
order to grant legitimacy to the limitations they impose on
advertising.
"Food manufacturers yield to religious blackmail, and Poster
Media ad agency grovels before the chareidim," he said.
"They want the council to promote legislation which will
result in sanctions against bodies who threatened ad
agencies, just as regarding political threats."
Recalling the compliance of the Cellcom phone company to
requests for the removal of ads that offend the Torah-
observant community, Fridan says: "If there had been a
Council for the Freedom of Advertising and the rival firms,
Partner and Pelephone would have been members and committed
themselves not to exploit a possible boycott against Cellcom
by chareidi factors, it would have been impossible to
threaten Cellcom. Today, every commercial body stands alone,
as a captive of threats and blackmail."
At the same time Fridan admits to the hypocrisy over the
issue by those in the political Left, who oppose all
"limitations of freedom of speech" where indecent
advertisements are concerned, yet are prepared to restrict
other advertisements which are not to their liking."
He was referring to the opposition to legislation initiated
by Meretz MKK Amnon Rubinstein to limit cigarette ads.
"I have this to say to Rubinstein: You're a liberal minded
person, enlightened and open. You think that you are acting
on behalf of the cigarette issue, and don't understand that
you are actually enabling fanatical bodies to impose
censorship for totally different reasons. The central point
at issue is: why is it permitted for you and prohibited for
them? "If those bodies who oppose smoking force the
advertisers to accept their views on how to advertise
cigarettes, how will it be possible, afterward, to tell the
chareidim that it is forbidden to interfere in advertisements
for cheese?
Religious Jews seeking to discover who is a partner to this
initiative, will not have to work hard in order to disclose
the identify of the ad men behind this idea.
Globes reports that the committee which authorized the
Advertisers Association to act in the issue included Razi
Peled, Miki Kaufman, Udi Fridan, Shlomi Avnon and Avner
Barel.
Fridan, who initiated and presented the issue to the
Advertising Association, even decided, in the spirit of the
times, to link the censoring of creativity in ads to the
political situation.
Why?
He expressed "his fear" of the overall atmosphere in the
country, especially as it pertains to the incitement and to
the cries of "traitor" hurled against the prime minister, and
he made strange connections between these negative phenomena,
and the legitimate demands of the Torah- observant community.
"The mood in the State is such that there are clandestine
sectors who permit themselves to act illegally, by means of
blackmail and threats, and no one does a thing about this
situation. Threats are also made against commercial firms and
the media, and no one lifts a finger. Bodies are subject to
blackmail and the censoring of creativity in advertisements,
and accept this as self- understood."
Thus by means of demagogic imagery, advertisers attempt to
create a distorted link between the legitimate demand to
curtail indecent ads, and political incitement. They don't
approve of the democratic method accepted by the entire world
of a consumer boycott, when they fear that it will hurt their
pocket and the pockets of those who seek their services.
Now they are seeking to fight for freedom for offensive
"creativity."
