Malaysia ad advisory body: 'Protect consumers from undue anxiety or confusion'

The Advertising Standards Advisory (ASA) Malaysia is reminding advertisers, agencies and media organisations to ensure their advertising adheres to the Malaysian Code of Advertising Practice during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period and COVID-19 pandemic. These groups are also advised to protect consumers from “undue anxiety, fear or confusion”.

“The ASA Malaysia would like to highlight that this crisis has not resulted in any changes to the Code which advertisers are expected to adhere in placing advertisements in non-networked and non-broadcast mediums such as newspapers, billboards, brochures and cinemas,” it said in a statement.

The reminder added that prior to preparing and placing their ads, advertisers, agencies and media organisations are expected to:

• Be familiar with the relevant legislation and codes;
• Ensure the ads are legal, decent, truthful and honest;
• Ensure the ads do not confuse consumers, abuse their trust, exploit their lack of knowledge or, without any justifiable reason, play on fear; and
• Ensure the ads do not exaggerate or raise unrealistic expectations or outcomes.

Consumers and businesses are also encouraged to come forward and report any ads that appear to be misleading to the ASA Malaysia. The ASA Malaysia comprises the Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies of Malaysia, Malaysian Newspaper Publishers Association, Media Specialists Association, and The Outdoor Advertising Association of Malaysia, and Malaysian Advertisers Association.

This comes shortly after the Communications and Multimedia Content Forum of Malaysia (CMCF) encouraged the nation's communications and multimedia sector to advertise responsibly and act ethically during the COVID-19 pandemic and MCO period. It reminded businesses of guidelines including putting out messages that contribute positively to the government's management of the crisis, avoid spreading misinformation, and only using honest and truthful claims about products and services that are capable of robust substantiation.

Separately, ASA Malaysia recently called out private universities in Malaysia for using print and outdoor advertisements "with clear intent to misrepresent", after the appearance of "several egregious advertisements" earlier this year, prior to the university intake.

ASA chairman Azizul Kallahan said it has seen several instances of advertisements placed by private universities this year that it has concluded are "unsubstantiated claims". He added that the use of phrases or words such as ‘No.1’, ‘Most’, or ‘Best’, ‘in advertising are instances of a superlative that require substantiation.

Failing to do so would mean running foul of Clause 4.2.2 of the Malaysian Code of Advertising Practice which states that any claim should "…not create a false impression concerning any quality possessed by the product…", Azizul explained.