A photo of the West Kelowna billboard in November 2020.
Photo credit: Twitter / Hello Kelowna
February 25, 2021 – 11:32 a.m.
The Canadian Advertising Regulator has a billboard in West Kelowna that reads “COVID. Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease?” broke advertising laws by falsely claiming the COVID-19 vaccine could be worse than the disease itself.
In the Ad Standards decision, the regulator ruled that Vaccine Choice Canada’s billboard broke advertising rules by being “misleading” by stating that the COVID-19 vaccine was or could be worse than COVID-19 although there was no evidence to support their claim.
The ruling said the ad “sowed that doubt (and) could add to vaccine hesitation by playing on fears rather than facts”.
According to the decision, the billboard asked, “COVID. Is the cure worse than the disease?” Next to this message was a picture of a sign that said, “Sorry, we’re closed”. Vaccine Choice Canada’s website address was displayed in large letters at the bottom of the billboard.
Several complainants came in saying that the ad disseminated dangerous information about COVID-19 security measures and posed a public health risk by making statements that are not true. The complainants also accused the ad of disseminating misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Ad Standards Board agreed.
In the recently released Ad Standards Decision, the Board determined that Vaccine Choice Canada’s billboard violated advertising standards such as “Accuracy and Clarity,” “Security,” and “Superstition and Fear”.
While the ruling does not specify a location for the billboard to be placed, one was discovered in West Kelowna last fall. Although the decision does not include a date, the decision states that the ad was run shortly before Health Canada approved the first COVID-19 vaccine.
The Ad Standards Board said the billboard’s message was open to multiple interpretations.
“The word” cure “could be interpreted to refer to actions taken to date to stop the spread of COVID-19, such as business closures, exemplified by the image of the” closed “sign next to the copy of the ad “, it says in the decision.
However, the majority of the board ruled that the word “cure” was interpreted to refer to the COVID-19 vaccine, since the words “vaccine choice” under the question “COVID. Is the cure worse than the disease?”
Ad Standards decided that this gave the billboard an “ambiguous” meaning.
Vaccine Choice Canada argued that its ad was intended to invite public discourse to assess the effectiveness of the measures imposed in response to the pandemic. It was further argued that discussions about the measures imposed by the pandemic were being “systematically censored” and that billboards were one of the remaining public spaces to engage with the public.
The regulator said that since an outdoor billboard is likely to be passed quickly, the advertisement created the “general impression” that the advertisement indicated that the COVID-19 vaccine was worse than contracting the disease itself.
“(Ad Standards) had no evidence that the vaccine was or could be worse than general COVID-19 contamination. Therefore, the advertising was found to be misleading,” the decision said.
The decision states that doing so violates the Ad Standards rules for accuracy and clarity.
The regulator also found that the billboard violated the rules for advertising standards related to safety, superstition and fear.
“Given a global pandemic and the possibility that a ‘cure’ could mean a vaccine, sowing that doubt could help make the vaccine hesitate by playing on fears and not providing facts,” the ruling said.
The decision went on to say that the decision was not unanimous and that a minority of the Ad Standards Board noted that the general impression the billboard created was that it sparked discussion about the economic impact of business closings.
The decision on ad standards does not specify whether a penalty was imposed or whether the billboard was still active or needed to be removed.
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News from © iNFOnews, 2021
