Advertising association ADC expelled Prchal due to unethical campaign
Update: 26/01/2023 16:42
Issued by: 01/26/2023, 4:40 p.m
Prague – The association of advertising professionals Art Directors Club Czech Republic (ADC) has expelled Marko Prchal, who works for the chairman of ANO, Andrej Babiš, from its ranks. He considers his campaign ahead of the upcoming second round of presidential elections to be unethical. It put it on its own website. It is the first expulsion of a member in 30 years of operation of the ADC. ČTK is looking for Prchal’s statement. Ethics must not be missing even in political communication, he said today website PR Club, which brings together more than 300 experts in the field of communication and external relations.
Babiš, who will face former NATO high representative General Petr Pavel in the second round, faced criticism for billboards with the text “I will not drag the Czechia into war. I am a diplomat. Not a soldier. President Babiš.” Critics accused him of scaring voters. Babiš admitted that the text was not successful and promised to change it. Then new posters appeared on the billboards with the inscription “The general does not believe in peace” with the postscript “Vote for peace. Vote for Babiš”.
“Using, even brazenly and purposefully, marketing and advertising to spread lies, fear and divide society is not only immoral, but also dangerous to the future direction of the industry,” said ADC Chairman David Suda. “We are convinced that the way this presidential campaign was conducted should definitely not be tolerated,” he said.
According to ADC members, Babiš’s campaign crosses not only professional but also ethical boundaries. Because of this, Prchala was asked to resign, which he refused. They therefore convened an extraordinary meeting of the club, where they agreed on his dismissal.
At the same time, ADC members have committed to drawing up a code of ethics for political advertising. They want the boundaries of honest and fair political campaign marketing to be professionally defined. “These, unlike commercial marketing communications, do not fall under any control body, so far the enormous impact on society,” said the association.
The Art Directors Club was founded in 1993. It brings together so-called creatives from communication and branding agencies, design studios, but also independent creative workers, such as copywriters, photographers or illustrators, who may work in the field of commercial communication.
The manner in which the presidential campaign was conducted by Babiš’s team raised a wave of questions and calls for clarification of the practices it uses, the PR Club reported. “What resonates the most is the intentional management of fear, the use of information and, in general, the fact that such a campaign further deepens the division of society,” he added, recalling the rules applicable to PR workers.
A professional in the field of communication is obliged to act honestly, transparently, respect dialogue and recognize the rights of all parties involved, defend his position and express his opinions, stated the PR Club with reference to the code of ethics of the International Public Relations Association IPRA. According to the code, the PR worker should also take all measures to ensure the truth and accuracy of all information provided and make every effort to ensure that false or misleading information is not intentionally disseminated.
“It’s time for political communication, that we have the rules for fair ethical communication, it’s just that communication needs to be required – also and perhaps above all – just in,” said the PR Club. He added that he would start negotiations on cultivating communication with the political representation. “About whether I perceive the need to follow the rules of the game so that their communication teams can be classified among the professional ones,” PR Klub described the topic they want to open.
Babiš himself had previously contributed to the spread of hateful and threatening messages, she wrote on Tuesday on twitter Deputy Speaker of the House Olga Richterová (Pirates). “You ‘helped’ it quite a bit before the parliamentary elections when you supported aggression against the Pirates and called them a scumbag who wants to steal people’s cottages. Do you remember?” dude