Mai Samih explores some of the problems concerning the Egyptian advertising industry According to legislators, in any purchasing deal there are two, unequal sides. The weak party is the Egyptian consumer, while the strong party is the company or merchant. The difference in power stems from the fact that the vendor has rights over the consumer. Nowadays this trend may be magnified, as people have less time to window-shop, while advertisements become the sole reference point for buyers. Egyptian legislators are currently working to protect consumer rights, by amending the consumer protection Law 76/2006. In many countries where consumer protection policies are more developed, consumers are given a 14-day grace period before their right to a refund expires. In Egypt, on the other hand, consumers rarely have this right, as most shops do not abide by the consumer rights law. In fact, any legal problems concerning this matter are solved according to laws governing land or housing contracts. Furthermore, outside Egypt, consumers have a right to a refund whether a given product has a defect or not. In Egypt this right is only applied when the product in question is faulty. One key issue that legislators are examining relates to the advertising industry and the responsibility of the media regarding consumer protection. As for ultimate responsibility in situations where fraud has taken place, legislators believe that it also falls on the management of media outlets, such as television and radio channels and newspapers, running misleading advertisements. Consumers can barely be expected to shoulder the responsibility, especially in situations where they have purchased an advertised product, when in fact the company promoting that product was using a fake address and was solely motivated by theft. In a bid to deal with some of these problems, the Ministry of Trade and Industry has already referred its new draft law to the Council of Ministers. The text includes amendments to some provisions of the current consumer protection law, and these are aimed at countering misleading advertisements. The draft law intends to amend Article 5 of the current law, obliging merchants to provide all consumers with a receipt for their purchases. The new law will also raise the fine for companies that break it from LE100,000 to LE200,000. When fraud has been committed on matters relating to health, the fine can go up to LE400,000. The question of whether this amount is really high enough remains. Mustafa Mohamed, aged 20, was just one victim of the injustice caused by a fraudulent advertisement for computer courses. "I read in an ad that an international computer course was due to start two weeks later," Mohamed told Al-Ahram Weekly. "After I paid the fees, I discovered that it was an ordinary course, just like the ones we are given in secondary school." Management science professor Marwa Hassouna explains the process of putting fraudulent information out in the public domain. First, companies choose which type of advertisement they are interested in making according to their needs and targets. "There are two types of advertisement: blind and want advertisements," Hassouna said. "Blind ads do not reveal the advertiser's identity, while the want ads are the total opposite." Speaking to the Weekly, Hassouna added that both abide by what is called the AIDA model, an acronym that stands for the four aims companies strive for: attention, interest, desire and action. In short, companies aim to catch consumers' attention and to lead them to making the purchase. "Some small companies apply what is called 'competition intelligence'," Hassouna went on. "They resort to blind ads in order to create a kind of parity vis-à-vis larger companies, while maintaining their privacy." However, in some cases, companies that publish blind advertisements for their products do so because their products are in fact not as valuable as other brands. Similar examples include companies that post a blind ad to recruit staff, and meanwhile fail to disclose the salary on offer because they fear competition with other companies also seeking employees. According to consultant El-Sayed Fouad, who works for the editor-in-chief of one of Egypt's most prominent newspapers, some limits are already in place. "We are careful not to publish advertisements that contain religious insults," said Fouad. "Concerning medical products, we ask companies for their certificates from the Ministry of Health before publishing their advertisements." There have been many attempts over the past 15 years to deal with the issue of advertisement fraud but these attempts have not resulted in an effective law that really controls the issue. In 1997, the Egyptian Advertising Association started giving its employees training in a bid to avoid future problems. Then in 1998 Egypt hosted the 36th International Advertising Association world congress, which fell short of tackling this issue. In the same year, the then minister of health Ismail Salam approved the decision of the Technical Control of Drugs Committee which was to not allow for any cosmetic or medical product to be advertised unless it had reviewed the wording prior to publication, or else the advertising establishment's licence would be withdrawn. Also in 1998, Maher El-Guindi, then governor of Giza, announced that each billboard in the governorate would only be granted to companies' advertisements for a maximum of three years. Then in 1999 Ahmed El-Goweili, then minister of trade and industry, and Ali El-Hawam, president of the department of internal trade, declared that advertisements for maintenance workshops of all types without a clear address and a licence number would be banned. As of 2001 medical products have no longer been advertised without the permission of the Doctors' Syndicate. In 2005, the Higher Council of Press approved a charter that controls advertisements. The charter stated that it would ban the publication of any advertisements that would fly in the face of social traditions, national unity or general behaviour. It also cut a clear line between journalism and advertising, and forbade newspapers from mixing the two professions by, for instance, publishing articles intended to encourage people to buy products manufactured by a certain company. Although much progress has been made over the years, Doha Samir, aged 25, believes that the draft amendments to the consumer protection law have actually done her very little good. "It has been four years now and I keep applying for jobs, but I rarely get feedback," Samir told the Weekly. "I find that not all advertisements are completely true." El-Sayed, on the other hand, is optimistic about the amended text. "It is wonderful and it should be accurately implemented," he said. "This should be under the supervision of the Consumer Protection Authority and the Supreme council for Journalism." The problem, according to El-Sayed, is that laws are not abided by. "Laws should be applied and practised by every newspaper, regardless of its size, equally." Until laws are more respected, authorities need to take action against companies that harm consumers by selling them food or medicine that is out of date. "Publishers should be accurate when it comes to advertising, especially when it comes to medical products," said El-Sayed, who added that this is particularly important for the protection of children. "In fact, the names of companies that do not abide by the law should be published so that people know they should not be dealing with them. Perhaps if we do this, the violations will come to an end."
