European ad chairman addresses threats: Calleux seeks to shift ownership of creative to agencies from clients By Daniel Tille

PARIS--Since becoming president of the European Association of Advertising Agencies (EA

In the first year of what can be a three-year term, Calleux spoke passionately of the need to thwart efforts by the European Economic Community to ban all tobacco advertising and heavily regulate other categories such as alcohol. Until now, objections from the U.K. and Germany have kept pan-European, anti-tobacco ad legislation off the books. Calleux’s strategy in this has been to offer EAAA allegiance to the European Advertising Tripartite, a trade organization of advertisers, the media and agencies, to lobby against the laws.
“The European Parliament decided tobacco ads should be outlawed because they do not appreciate the necessity of business,” he explained. “But bans are wrong for any product legally available. One should never compromise freedom of speech.”
Despite cooperation on regulatory matters, the EAAA and advertisers sit on opposite sides of the fence on the issue of creative ownership. “Agencies have traditionally yielded their rights in this area,” Calleux acknowledged. “Now we want to establish that creative ideas belong to us, not the advertisers. The fact that agencies get paid even if the same campaign runs more than one year demonstrates a moral right to agency ownership.”
Copyright Adweek L.P. (1993)