Dealing With Complaints About Advertising in Australia: the Importance of Regulatory Selfdiscipline
Debra HarkerandMichael HarkerUniversity of the Sunshine Coast
Introduction
As the most visible of business practices (Boddewyn, 1989), marketing is criticised by almost everyone, from social critics to public policymakers to political pundits (Rotfeld, 1999). The practices of audience manipulation, market abuse of children, cultural destruction and unacceptable advertising are among the social ills often laid at the door of the marketing business (Rotfeld, 1999). Indeed, advertising in particular has been described as pervasive (Drake, 1988), intrusive (Blakeney and Barnes, 1982) and pernicious, and the...