The Advertising Standards Complaints Board has upheld in part complaints over an advertisement by Hobson’s Pledge which was published in the New Zealand Herald in August.
The Complaints Board ruled the advertisement, headed “restore the foreshore and seabed to public ownership”, must not be used again.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received a total of 672 complaints after the advertisement’s publication in the Herald on August 7. Of those complaints, 655 were accepted to go to the Complaints Board.
The Board agreed it was an advocacy advertisement and had been sufficiently identified as such.
However, the ASA added: “The Complaints Board ruled three claims in the two-page wrap advertisement were materially misleading as to the effect of customary marine title under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 and emphasised the importance of factual accuracy in advocacy advertising.”
The Board said the claims made in the advertisement were in breach of the Truthful Presentation and Social Responsibility principles in the Advertising Standards Code.
It also considered other concerns raised by complainants but ruled there were no further breaches of the code.
A majority decided the advertisement did not reach the threshold to be considered offensive in the context of advocacy advertising.
The majority of the Board also took into account the protection for freedom of expression in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and noted where strong views were expressed, this may cause some level of offence to those who hold contrary views.
In a statement to RNZ in August, an NZME spokesperson defended the decision to run the advertisement.
“There are several thousand advertisements placed across NZME’s platforms every week and publishing an advertisement is in no way NZME’s endorsement of the advertised message, products, services or other,” the spokesperson said at the time.
The company said responsibility for advertisements lay with the company’s commercial team and was separate to the Herald’s editorial team. But it later said it was reviewing its advocacy advertising policies and declined to publish an additional Hobson’s Pledge ad.
