บทบาทของกองเผยแพร่และควบคุมการโฆษณา กระทรวงสาธารณสุข ในการพิจารณาควบคุมการโฆษณาสินค้าประเภทอาหารและยา / ศรีธวัฒน์ อิทธิระวิวงศ์ = The roles of the public relations and advertisement control, division, ministry of public health, in the censorship of the food and drug advertising / Srithawat Ithtiravivong
At present the advertising has been accepted as a kind of important marketing strategy in the competitive situation of the business. Therefore, various producers compete against one another in winning consumers’ hearts by means of more striking – attention advertisement. This advertising war meets with critioism stated that whether these advertisements are overclaimed and are true to fact etc., especially those of food & drugs which affects consumers directly. The government, therefore, assigns the authority of the advertising consideration to the Publio Relations and Advertisement Control Division ( PAC) which is the unit of the Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Public Health. As far as the case of food & drugs concerns, there occurs a conceptual conflict between advertising agencies and PAC committee concerning the interpretation of the regulations imposed on the food & drugs advertising. This immensely affects the advertising operation of food & drugs products because the agencies do not understand what criterion the PAC committee utilizes to judge whether advertisements are overclaimed or deceitful etc. As for producers of food & drugs, they also encounter their problems i.e. unable to launch their advertising plans as scheduled, unable to reach their prospective sales target because of the inadequate advertising impact etc. The processes of the research have been undertaken from 2 information sources i.e. the primary information source and the secondary information source. In respect to the primary information source, personal interviewing will be utilized and the non- probabilistics sampling method will help select samples from 3 sampling groups i.e. the committee of PAC, the well – experienced advertising personalities, and the producers of food and drugs who are advertisers.
The secondary information source served ad back- up information will be collected from the external source, for example, the regulations, various articles on food & drugs advertising written by advertising personalities or the committee of PAC, etc. Having studied the roles of PAC in the censorship of the Food and Drug advertising, we gained several important points as followed : The committee of PAC lacks the advertising knowledge; there is no certain and appropriate criterion in considering and controlling the food & drugs advertising. The Appeal Committee and the Primary PAC Committee are the group ; no meticulous and clear reasons are made in the non – approval of the advertising copy; the co –operation of public sectors in advertising control is not good enough ; the advertising control both in Bangkok and the provinces is not thoroughly covered; parts of consumers lack the knowledge and understanding in selecting goods; there is a trend showing that advertising control on food and drugs in the future will be more stringent. Some suggestion for the authority of food & drugs advertising control has been provided as followed : The PAC committee should study more of advertising knowledge; the criterion of food & drugs advertising control should be up- to-date, flexible and suitable for the contemporary world; there also should be a certainty for advertising people to attach to as a rule ; the Appcal Committee of PAC should be apart from the Primary one; meticulous & clear reasons should be made in case that any non – approval of advertising copy occurred so as to avoid the consequent problems; the improvement of the co- operation among public sectors relating with food & drugs advertising controls should be undertaken; more bugets and more officials for product inspection in the marketplace and advertising monitoring both in Bangkok and provinces are needed; consumers should learn how to select goods rationally and should participate in helping the society, for example, pointing out and reporting any dangerous or overclaimed products to PAC authority for undertaking legal action.
