From July 7 you won't have to reach for the remote each time there's a commercial break. New regulations published by BCAP (Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice) rule that ads must be the same volume as their surrounding programmes. Thankfully there's not yet any such thing as SCALP (Spoilsport Committee Against Loud Promotions).
Banning noisy ads is the SP equivalent of being told we can't make pack-flashes stand out. Received wisdom has it that it's our job to violate the pack, wreck the beautifully crafted graphic harmony, disrupt the customer's unblinking trancelike state as they reach for their habitual box of bloggo...
Imagine if all pack-flashes had to conform to SCALP's requirements: brand colours only, same typeface, no moving about of existing design elements, must look part of the imagery as a whole (... wait a minute... this sounds like quite a few briefs I can think of down the years!). Might as well put the stuff on the back of the pack. Might as well not bother.
I know it's advertising, and the fancy dans deserve all the brickbats that get flung their way, but imagine an industry regulation system where 100 complaints are allowed to wreck a fundamental liberty of the promoter... the person (company) who's paying for the very programmes the protesting pedants sit glued to each evening. It's a sad state of affairs. Let's hope we can keep our heads down and avoid being SCALPed in similar fashion.
