ISLAMABAD: Following the advisory issued by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) for broadcasters and advertisers, an upcoming biscuit ad will be themed around promotion around violence against women with the aim to follow Pemra regulations and wider cultural acceptability in Pakistan.
The Dependent has reliably learnt from sources privy to the biscuit’s latest marketing campaign that they will be focusing the entirety of the ad strategies on subjects that the country has either endorsed or embraced.
“None of the dancing or singing. We don’t want to show any happy people – especially happy women. We’ll be showing the abuse that is carried out behind closed doors, and out in the open, and the ad would promote apologia and justifications for the abuse,” revealed a member of the marketing campaign.
While such a marketing campaign would address one of the points of Pemra’s advisory, by not being “in violation of commonly accepted standards of decency but also socio-cultural norms of Pakistani society,” but critics ask if the latest ad would comply with other guidelines.
Questions specifically centre around Pemra’s guideline maintaining that themes should “correspond with the nature of the product being marketed.”
“The apologists will be shown eating our biscuits while endorsing violence against women,” clarified a member of the team that has conceived the latest ad.
“Of course, such will be the popularity of what these apologists—predominantly men, but also women—would be saying that they would not only enhance the popularity of our biscuit, there wouldn’t be any complaints for Pemra to bother reviewing.”
