Carphone Warehouse & Big Brother: a dangerous precedent?
‘We had already made it clear to Channel 4 that, were this to continue, we would have to consider our position.’
– Carphone Warehouse CEO, Charles Dunstone
The decision by Carphone Warehouse to end its sponsorship of Celebrity Big Brother (as at least one perfumery removes a contestant’s brand from its shelves and an advertiser dumps another from a campaign) is far from unreasonable. Sponsors pick and choose individuals, teams and television programmes that somehow reflect the lifestyles and values they hope people will associate with them… they want the target market to aspire to be like them.
Carphone Warehouse clearly doesn’t want to be associated with foul-mouthed, racist bullying. Fair enough.
And yet we should all be discomforted by an advertiser attempting to directly influence programme content. Ofcom’s code is designed: ‘to ensure that the broadcaster maintains editorial control over sponsored content and that programmes are not distorted for commercial purposes.’
Taking the sponsor’s statement at face value, it seems that warnings issued by Carphone Warehouse prior to withdrawing its sponsorship may have crossed that line. And that would make for a dangerous precedent.
Contact Stephen Newton
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