This after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ordered the municipality to stop running parts of a radio commercial, based on a false reflection of the city.
Municipal spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane said the media failed to get its facts right and reported the ruling out of context. He said that the ASA ruled on the withdrawal of a specific radio advert and not the whole campaign.
“The ASA’s order was to the effect that this radio commercial must be withdrawn immediately and not flighted again,” he said.
According to Modingoane, the tagline a “World Class African City” ran in an old commercial, and there is no mention of it in the current commercial.
“The complaint was specific to a single radio advertisement, neither the complaint itself nor the ruling even mentioned the ‘World Class African City’ term,” he said.
Parts of the commercial that ASA ordered to be withdrawn stated: “Imagine a city where you can rest assured, knowing that it is financially stable; that there is ongoing electrification of homes; a city that is saving the environment through different energy-efficient interventions; a city that continues to create new jobs despite the economic downturn. Can you imagine living in such a city? You do.”
Modingoane said the municipality will challenge the validity of the ASA’s finding.
The complainant, Steve Haywood, said the ruling was on one specific advert and not the tagline “World-Class African City”.
Haywood’s submission complained that the commercial contained blatant untruths: that the city is financially stable, yet it had received three consecutive qualified audits, with Pikitup bankrupt and the Johannesburg Roads Agency unable to repair roads.
In its ruling document, the ASA said it accepted the complainant’s submission as a true reflection of the facts, after the municipality failed to respond.
It ruled, based on the information before it, that the commercial communicated a misleading message about the overall well-being of the respondent.
