State bans use of currency images on ads

By Macharia Kamau

Advertisers will no longer splash images of money in their advertisements following a move by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) to ban the use of local currency in promotional, marketing or advertising material.

Use of currency is common in print and electronic advertisements where advertisers capitalise on the importance that society attaches to money get the consumers to notice their products. CBK, however, issued a notice late last year prohibiting the use of currency notes or coins for other purposes other than their core purpose, which is strictly as a mode of exchange.

"No person shall make use of currency notes, current or historical, for publication or promotional or other purposes without prior written approval from the Bank," said a Gazette notice.

The CBK currency handling regulations 2008 also makes it mandatory for advertisers, marketers and other industry players wishing to use the local currency for other purposes other than as currency shall apply in writing to CBK and make other disclosures including providing a copy of the work within which the currency will be included.

"An application…shall provide full information on that manner and purpose for which the images of notes or coins are to be used including specimen of the works over which the use is intended and a declaration that the intended use would not infringe on the Bank’s copyright over the notes and coins," said the notice signed by CBK Governor Njuguna Ndung’u.

Requirement

The requirements will stop advertisers from using currency images and see fewer and fewer advertisers using them on their ads.

Retail outlets, manufacturers of fast moving consumer goods and telecommunication companies stand out as having used images of money in their ads and other promotional materials in the recent past in attempts to draw customers’ attention on the much they stood to win during their holiday promotions.

Use of currency images in ads and promotional materials has advertisers seeming to tread on unethical grounds by creating false impressions of both the models used and the company among audiences, a substantial proportion of whom are cash strapped.

The industry has over time enjoyed a laissez faire environment in Kenya with few regulations that are scattered in different legislations governing advertising. It is only in the recent past that the government has moved to regulate advertising of alcohol on electronic media and banned advertising of tobacco products. Legal services, prescription drugs and a few other sensitive products and services are not advertised.

The Association of Practitioners in Advertising is the industry’s professional body in Kenya and is supposed to govern ethics in its practice and members who stray from its code are sanctioned. A substantial number of practitioners, both corporates and individuals, do not however fall under the body.

Though the notice by CBK was signed on November 3 by the Governor and gazetted on November 21, many promotional materials inform of newspaper, TV and billboard ads as well as ads in the below-the-line advertising media still bear images of the Kenyan currency.