Bambini ban
The Legge Gasparri, the new Italian media law, caused much controversy in Italy, with critics arguing that it will add to premier Silvio Berlusconi's conflict of interest and his stranglehold over the Italian media sector.
Less high profile has been the discontent that the law has generated in the advertising industry, which has been stunned by a provision banning children aged under 14 from appearing in television and radio commercials in Italy.
This provision was introduced as one of a plethora of amendments presented by the opposition to slow the bill. Somehow it got on to the statute books amid intense parliamentary debate over other aspects of the bill.
The upshot is that while countries such as Sweden, Holland and Greece have prohibited or placed restrictions on commercials directed at children, Italy has become the first country in Europe that has gone as far as issuing a ban on new radio and TV commercials featuring children.
In a family-centred country, where nearly one in two commercials aired in primetime feature bambini, according to Italy's Observatory on Child Labour, this is a major blow to the advertising industry.
In the first 10 months of 2003 Nielsen Media Research counted around 1,000 TV and printed press advertising campaigns featuring children.
Over the same period, E483m was spent across all media on advertising whose principal target was children.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Children do not just appear in commercials for nappies, toys and sweets, but those for mobile phones, financial services and cars.
"Children are the family's reference point. Certainly in Italy we tend to use children in commercials to touch and move parents. This is part of our Latin spirit," says Marco Testa, chairman of one Italy's top advertising agencies, Armando Testa. "Bambini are the key to opening adults' hearts."
UPA, the Italian advertisers' association that includes companies such as Ferrero, Procter & Gamble and Barilla, has been lobbying hard to have the ban removed.
"This law is absurd. We are all very shocked by it," says Felice Lioy, head of UPA. "Banning children from ads will cause huge [economic] damage to advertisers."
"Advertising is a reflection of day-to-day life. Excluding children makes no sense and will make ads ineffective," he adds.
Already the ban, which came into force early in May, is having a negative impact. "Advertisers now don't know how to go about making commercials. They are disoriented," says Lioy.
"We are finding ourselves in serious trouble now because we need to produce new campaigns," adds Taide Guajardo, the media director of Pampers manufacturer Procter & Gamble in Rome.
Testa says, for example, that his agency has had to put on hold a number of TV campaigns because his clients did not want to fall foul of the law.
"On many other commercials we've had to intervene, for example, by removing children from the ad, or changing the ad altogether," he says.
Italian viewers are unlikely to tell the difference yet. They can still see little naked bottoms, mums offering kiddies tempting snacks and fathers smiling proudly at their offspring lined up in the back of the station wagon.
This is because the advertising industry is interpreting the new law to mean that while no new Italian production can be aired, any commercials produced before the ban can still run and new commercials produced abroad with foreign children can too.
Says an executive from Ferrero, Italy's largest advertising spender: "As far as we are concerned, if the ban were to stay, we would then have to go elsewhere to produce our commercials."
For example, Italian advertising practitioners say they can shoot in Switzer- land with young Swiss Italians from Lugano, or use children who have just turned 14 but who look much younger than their age.
"The problem, however, is that this interpretation has not been officially sanctioned," says Pierluigi Cottafavi, a partner at Milan-based law firm Fusi. The Italian ministry of communications was expected to issue some guidelines on the law in early July, but this is now not expected until October.
Meanwhile, the Italian media watchdog, the Autorita per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, has already received complaints that commercials broadcasting young children are still being aired, but says it is unable to do anything about it until the ministry has issued guidance. Yet even if the looser interpretation prevails, it would only represent a short-term fix.
"The commercials produced before the ban are already beginning to lose their effectiveness," complains Procter & Gamble's Guajardo.
"This ban is very bad news, especially now that advertisers are being very cautious about how they spend their money," adds Testa, referring to the struggles of a sector that still hasn't fully recovered from the downturn of 2001.
"To create these impediments and force them to shoot abroad is far from ideal," he observes. Advertisers could also shift their investments into other media, such as print, or reduce their overall spend.
Lioy argues that the ban must be lifted and is optimistic that this will happen soon, pointing to broad industry and political consensus that it is a disaster. This has led lawmakers to start preparing a bill to reverse the ban.
The problem for advertisers is that the parliamentary process is tortuously slow in Italy. Further, the issue has become embroiled in a wider political battle around the Gasparri law - which saw the resignation in May of the state broadcasters' high-profile chairwoman, Lucia Annunziata - and a gathering crisis in the governing coalition.
The best case scenario would see the ban lifted no sooner than the end of October - meaning advertisers may be unable to salvage their Christmas campaigns. And Natale in Italy without bambini hardly bears thinking about.
意大利禁止宝宝上广告
意大利新的传媒法(Legge Gasparri)在国内引起了很大的争议。批评家认为，它加剧了意大利总理西尔维奥?贝卢斯科尼(Silvio Berlusconi)的利益冲突以及他对媒体的压制。
相对低调的一件事是，意大利的广告业也大为不满。广告人士吃惊地发现在该传媒法中有一条规定，禁止在电视和广播广告中出现14岁以下的儿童。
这条规定是反对派为拖延法案通过而提出的一长串修改意见中的一项。可不知怎的，它竟会在议会对该法案其他方面进行激烈辩论时，就这么被写进了法典。
结果是，尽管瑞典、荷兰和希腊禁止或限制针对儿童的广告，意大利是欧洲第一个颁布禁令、禁止以儿童拍摄新的广播和电视广告的国家。
在意大利这个以家庭为核心的国家，该规定不啻是对广告业沉重的打击。根据意大利童工观察组织(Observatory on Child Labour)的数据，该国黄金时间播放的广告中，几乎每两条里就有一条是由小孩主演的。
尼尔森媒体研究(Nielsen Media Research)则发现，2003年前10个月中，大约有1000条电视和平面广告是以儿童的主角的。
在此期间，意大利所有媒体上以儿童为主要目标对象的广告花费达4.83亿欧元。
这只是冰山一角。儿童不仅仅出现在尿布、玩具和糖果广告中，他们还是手机、金融服务、汽车等商品的代言人。
“儿童是家庭的轴心。在意大利，我们当然倾向于在广告中使用儿童来打动父母。这是我们拉丁精神的一部分，” 意大利著名广告公司之一阿尔曼多?泰斯塔(Armando Testa)的董事长马尔科?泰斯塔(Marco Testa) 说道。
包括费列罗(Ferrero)、宝洁(Procter & Gamble)和巴里拉(Barilla)等企业在内的意大利广告客户协会UPA，正竭力游说政府取消该禁令。
“这部法律很荒唐。我们都非常震惊，”UPA主席费利切?廖伊(Felice Lioy)表示，“禁止广告中出现儿童将对广告客户造成巨大的(经济)损失。”
他补充说，“广告是日常生活的体现。把儿童排除在外是讲不通的，而且也使广告失去有效性。”
这项5月就已生效的禁令正造成负面影响。廖伊说道：“广告客户不知该怎么去拍广告。他们失去了方向。”
“我们发现现在麻烦大了，因为我们需要设计新一轮的广告投放，”宝洁罗马公司中负责帮宝适(Pampers)的媒介总监塔伊德?瓜哈尔多(Taide Guajardo)补充道。
泰斯塔认为，他的广告公司不得不暂停一些电视广告的投放，因为客户不想违反法律。
他表示，“对于其它许多广告，我们不得不进行干预，例如，把儿童从广告中删掉，或完全改变该广告。”
意大利的观众还不太可能看出差别来。他们仍能看见光光的小屁股，妈妈给小乖乖诱人的小吃，父亲得意地笑看在旅行车后座上坐成一排的孩子。
这是因为广告业是如此解释新法的：它只意味着意大利新制作的广告片不可以播放，而任何在禁令前制作的广告片仍然有效，在国外找外国儿童拍摄的新广告也可以播放。
意大利最大的广告客户费列罗的一位高管表示：“就我们而言，如果这一禁令将延续的话，我们就只好到其它地方制作广告了。”
譬如，意大利的广告从业者表示，他们可以上瑞士拍片，从卢加诺(Lugano)找年轻的瑞士意大利人，或找那些刚过14岁但看上去要比实际年龄小得多的孩子。
“但问题是，这种解释还没有得到官方的认可，”一家驻米兰的律师事务所富西(Fusi)的合伙人皮耶路易吉?科塔法维(Pierluigi Cottafavi)说。人们原指望意大利通信部能于6月初就该法颁布一些指导意见，但最早也要等到10月份。
与此同时，意大利媒体监测机构Autorita per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni已经收到有关带有小孩的广告仍在播放的投诉，但它表示，在通信部出台指导意见之前，它什么也不能做。然而，即使宽松的解释能够获胜，这也只是解一时之急。
宝洁的瓜哈尔多抱怨说，“在禁令颁布前制作的广告已经开始失去有效性了。”
“这项禁令是个极坏的消息，特别是考虑到广告客户正对如何花钱变得非常谨慎。” 泰斯塔补充说道。他指出，该行业还未完全从2001年的低迷中恢复。
“制造这些壁垒并迫使他们去国外拍摄，决不是一件好事。” 他评论道。广告客户也可能把投资转向其它媒体，如平面，或整个地削减预算。
廖伊认为，必须取消该禁令。他还乐观地表示，这不久就会发生，因为对于许多行业以及政治舆论来说，这不啻是个灾难。法律制定者已经开始准备一项推翻该禁令的法案。
而广告客户面临的难题是，意大利的议会程序极慢。其次，该争议已经卷入一场围绕传媒法的政治斗争，这场斗争的波及面更广，意大利国家电视台台长卢恰?安农齐亚塔(Lucia Annunziata)已经为此辞职，而政府的联盟也出现分裂的危机。
即使最乐观地估计，该禁令也不会在10月底之前被取消。这也就意味着，广告客户可能赶不及拯救圣诞广告计划了。而意大利的圣诞节若没有小孩――真让人不敢想象。
