Today I attended a meeting at the DfT with the ad industry and interested bodies. Boy, are they unhappy with us. They don't like that they are going to have to put CO2 info on their pretty car ads. Apparently it will ruin the ad industry and the economy...!
The same person, who will remain anonymous said at the beginning of the meeting "All of us support regulation and want to comply with the law." By the end of the meeting she was saying "If you give us specific guidance it's easy for us to get around." I think the latter comment might be the more honest!
The fact is, the DfT aren't going to backtrack on this - the legislation will be brought in. Whether it is strictly enforced is another matter. To be realistic, I am sceptical.
Now we have a month (the industry wanted 10 weeks!) to go away and decide what size the info regarding CO2 should be on the billboards. We want it big and easy to understand. They want it tiny, ignorable and incomprehensible.
The funniest thing was how they kept trying to tell us that the info didn't serve a purpose so why should it be there at all? However, if it doesn't serve a purpose and isn't generally read, why do they have such a problem putting it on there in the first place? Because it will make their ad unsightly? They should just see it as a challenge to creating subtler ads, like our friends the cigarette advertisers did, back in the day.
At the end of the meeting we were sworn to secrecy. We were told not to talk to the press. So I've granted anonymity to the above woman. But they're not going to stop me blogging about it. I just can't keep secrets, evidently.
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