Forum to promote advertising to EU

EU%20flagThe European Parliament is launching a forum today to champion the role of advertising and promote self-regulation to the MEPs. It will offer a platform for debate in the face of the potential restrictions and bans that are regularly being proposed across the European Union.

The group, called AdVantage, will be the first multi-country, multi-party platform within the European Parliament to support advertising as an industry.

The creation of the group has been triggered by the need to include the advertising industry when developing EU policies that could affect the communications and media industries. It will provide evidence of the benefits of commercial communications to the MEPs and highlight the role of advertising in legislative debates on issues such as health.

A spokeswoman for the committee says that AdVantage aims to set its agenda by presenting advertising as an important indicator of a healthy economy, and as having the “ability” to promote ideas, goods and services in line with freedom of expression. It will also promote self-regulation as complementary to statutory legislation.