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Television advertising of socially sensitive products always seems to be controversial regardless of where they are promoted. Products such as cigarettes and condoms and issues such as AIDS all need to be carefully advertised to avoid violating legal and social guidelines. In this article, executive perceptions of legal and social constraints on television advertising are examined. Drawing on data from 344 US advertising agency affiliates in fifteen different countries, perceptions of advertising restrictions are examined across developed-developing markets, high-medium-low cultural context countries, and for individual markets. Surprisingly, legal constraints were fairly constant across developing-developed, high-medium-low context country classifications. Social restrictions were more noticeable in the developing world, whereas developed nations had more liberated advertising environments. Another unexpected finding was that high-low context markets showed similar patterns of legal and social restrictions, though medium context countries showed greater tolerance for sexual- and health-related products and issues. A country analysis showed countries touched by British culture to be as restrictive as some traditional developing markets; and that Latin America had a relatively open advertising environment.
Shao et al. (Sat,) studied this question.