Dear editor:

The National Federation of Advertising Companies (FNEP) endorsed and signed a norm to perfect Spanish employed within the various spheres of the Advertising industry. FNEP President Angel del Pino was the one to draft the document.

More than a hundred renowned public figures of the advertising sector defended this initiative by taking action and participation. Through their Federation and the signed norm, advertising companies approved several competences in defense of language.

In the real world we are constantly, consciously, and unconsciously bombed with public ads. Spaniards watch television an estimated of 10 minutes per hour. Today, our media traffics more than 40,000 annual ads. Thus, it may be affirmed that the advertising world has an incredible amount of power, whose consequential potential reach ad campaigns. Advertising is often thought as the world’s fifth superpower.

The audience (target) suffer a notable impact from the way that the ad is designed. For example, the language used in the ad is of strategic use. Ad creators are constantly searching and using catchy phrases to win over the attention of their target. Their ends justify their means.

The words used tend to not coincide with our common language. Instead, solecism becomes the habit: the aggression against correct syntax and the purity of a language, for example, making grave and intentional grammatical errors. By its constant use, this phenomenon gradually degrades the richness of a language.

The defense of language is vital. It is therefore fundamental to have a norm that ads may come to adjust to idiomatic corrections. Such a norm should also serve as a guiding blueprint for the advertised message and advertising campaigns. With the initiative carried out by FNEP these above suggestions may come to be practiced in the world of advertising.

Clemente Ferrer

President of the European Institute of Marketing in Spain