“The Communications Commission has decided to afford broadcasters a transitional period of 8 months to bring their activities, approaches and contracts in line with the legislation, and to comply with the product placement rules from the start of next year,” ComCom member Ivane Makharadze stated at the conference “TV Advertising Market Challenges – Product Placement,” which was organised by the Commission with the aim of sharing international practices in the field of TV product placement, ensuring cooperation between the parties and agreeing on methods of eliminating unlawful product placement.

Ivane Makharadze opened the event with a welcome speech, where he emphasised the alarming situation with regards to product placement in Georgian television programmes: “Although product placement rules are regulated at the legislative level and guidelines are in place, this issue remains a problem that must be solved in order to protect the interests of viewers. As you all know, violating the product placement rules violates the rights of the viewers, since non-identifiable advertising can mislead viewers and influence their decisions, especially children, young people and other vulnerable groups,” the commissioner stated.

Mr. Makharadze lamented that in today's broadcasting space, presenters often over-emphasise the features and advantages of a product, making it impossible to separate advertising from programme content. This violates the rights of the viewer, since it becomes impossible for viewers to separate advertisement, programme content and the presenter's opinion from each other.

“The programmes are often tailored for the advertiser and not for the interests of the viewers, which is categorically unacceptable. The purpose of the Communications Commission is to protect viewers from hidden and misleading commercial communications on the one hand, and to protect broadcasters from commercial influence on the other,” Mr. Makharadze stated.

During the conference, Ivane Makharadze focussed on the approach employed by ComCom, and shared the Commission’s decision with the audience: “On the one hand, the Commission could have been stricter in this area, as its counterparts are in other countries, by regularly initiating proceedings based on its monitoring activities and making decisions that would lead to frequent fines for broadcasters, as there are product placement violations being committed by different channels almost every day. The other way, which we ultimately chose, was to study international best practices, what was happening in developed European countries, and what the local existing laws and approaches were. After the study was completed, we wanted to share the results and future visions of the Commission in this format, so that the approach and vision of ComCom would be predictable for the broadcasters.

“Since we understand that it is a difficult task to change a long-term practice in one day, the Commission has decided to continue media monitoring for the next 8 months to identify violations, but not to apply sanctions. This approach will set new practices and all broadcasters will have time to change their approach and come into compliance with the law. After the transition period, the Commission will respond to the detected violations, use the powers granted by the law and impose appropriate sanctions on the violating broadcaster,” Ivane Makharadze stated.

The commissioner highlighted another initiative, stating that ComCom is ready to individually visit any channel, meet marketing and legal service representatives, producers and presenters who plan and execute programmes, respond to any of their questions, and provide them with advice and recommendations on how to perform product placement without violating the law or the rights of the viewers.

During the conference, the audience was also addressed by the chairman of the Georgian Competition and Consumer Agency (GCCA), Irakli Lekvinadze, who emphasised the importance of cooperation with ComCom: “Our legislation is close to the EU requirements with regards to competition and consumer rights. We also have a very close cooperation with ComCom. We have a number of platforms where we share local and international experience in this field, as well as talk about challenges and joint opportunities,” Mr. Lekvinadze stated, emphasising the need to eliminate the existing threats to consumer rights on the TV advertising market, and specifically the product placement violations.