Message bows to medium

By IRENE CHAPPLE

When Falun Gong practitioner Shelley Shao decided to advertise the group's beliefs, she also planned to make a political statement.

She chose a photograph taken last year that showed Western Falun Gong practitioners in Tiananmen Square protesting at Chinese Government treatment of followers.

Previously, the movement had done newsletter drops to 400,000 homes, and run print advertising. This time, Ms Shao decided to use back-of-bus advertising.

But she soon discovered that such a public medium imposes limitations all of its own, and her chosen picture was too politically fraught to grace the back of Auckland buses.

The photograph showed followers from Europe, North America and Australia who had unfurled a banner and shouted slogans before being swooped on by police, interrogated overnight and expelled from China the next day.

Police could be seen in the background converging on the group. The Government at the time accused the group of having "violated Chinese laws governing parades, demonstrations and cults".

The protest was embarrassingly close to October's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meeting in Beijing, where 21 world leaders gathered. Before the forum, said the China Police Daily, 23,000 suspected criminals, including Falun Gong practitioners, were arrested during a nationwide sweep.

The Chinese Government had banned the group in 1999, calling it the biggest threat to one-party communist rule since the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests. Such a history, discovered Ms Shao, was too sensitive to be touched upon in outdoor advertising.

Ms Shao emigrated from China in 1998 and is now one of about a hundred New Zealand Falun Gong practitioners. The movement's principles are truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance, she says. She wanted to inform the public about treatment of Falun Gong followers.

Dianne Burton, of Dianne Burton Advertising, liaises with private clients for bus advertising through Buspak Advertising Group. It holds exclusive agreements for advertising with StageCoach and Howick and Eastern Buses, among others.

Ms Burton guided Ms Shao through the process.

"We had to be careful," says Ms Burton. "At first Shelley wanted to say how many people had been persecuted, but it's a sensitive political issue."

A better message to push, Ms Burton, argued, was that of peace and Falun Gong's meditation practices. "We guided them around another angle. We felt it was important to get the peaceful message out there."

Ms Shao accepted the advice. Falun Gong, she says, is a non-profit, non-political group. While a positive spin-off from the advertisements would be to encourage more practitioners, the foremost intention was to let people know what Falun Gong was about.

"We want more people to join, but we don't have any way to push that. We also want to let people to know what happened in China," explains Ms Shao.

But it was a toned-down advertisement that eventually adorned the back of a Stagecoach bus for three months. Ms Shao was satisfied with the results, and has now taken a three-month advertising space on the back of a Howick and Eastern Bus. The campaign has cost $10,000, paid for by Falun Gong practitioners.

Outdoor advertising cannot target an audience the way, say, television advertising can. Bus companies and agencies impose their own constrains on advertising.

As Ms Shao found out, the restrictions stymie more contentious campaigns.

"People can't choose what they watch [in outdoor advertising]," explains Buspak managing director Steve O'Connor, "so we have a strict self-regulatory system in place."

Sales and marketing manager Christopher Gin says it's about social responsibility. He was unhappy with the originally mooted Falun Gong advertisement because of its anti-China sentiment.

"We don't want to get involved in that," he says. The amended peaceful message was acceptable.

The kind of advertising usually rejected includes alcohol, political campaigns and nudity.

Stagecoach commercial director Ian Turner points out another constraint: the public purse. Seventy-five per cent of Stagecoach's funding comes from fares, the other 25 per cent from regional councils. In Auckland, that will equate to $28 million for the coming year.

"We wouldn't run anything that was critical of council," he says.

Stagecoach has allowed political advertising for both local and national elections, "but we make sure everyone has an opportunity for the same rights", says Mr Turner. While the rules are ad hoc, the potential audience, including school-children, is always considered.

One campaign rejected by Buspak two years ago involved a $100,000 spend by New Zealand Natural Icecream. The poster advertisement, created in Australia, showed a couple running naked - "natural" - on the beach.

The original photo, explains New Zealand manager Brian Mooney, showed breast and bottoms. While that ran in Australia, New Zealanders proved more prudish.

The advertisement was reshot, obscuring breasts and shading out the couple's bottoms. The toned-down version was accepted and ran for three months on almost 50 buses.

"I got one or two complaints," says Mr Mooney, "while about 15 people asked for a copy of the poster."

He believes advertising has relaxed over the last two years, and Mr Turner agrees. A nationwide campaign last October showing Elle Macpherson in lacy lingerie did not attract any complaints. Instead, it received high praise and she remained on the buses after the month-long contract expired.

Bendon Group general manager Kay Cohen says Buspak warned her about possible adverse reaction to bare flesh. She believes the positive response was due to Elle's respectable reputation. "You never see any naughty bits. The ads are always done very tastefully," Ms Cohen says.

Despite restrictions, advertising on buses - which Mr Turner says has been around forever - is in high demand.

It has boomed over the past five years, and Stagecoach's revenue from advertising on the 1000-odd buses is now "significant".

Mr O'Connor says the market has quadrupled in the past four years, and bus advertising is now worth between $5 and $10 million each year.