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The U.S. House of Representatives have recently approved a bill that will limit the volume of television advertisements. The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act or CALM which was approved in late December will introduce guidelines from the Advanced Television Systems Committee that aim to ban excessively loud advertisements and advertisements that are noticeably louder that the program they accompany. Although it will be another year until the FCC will start enforcing this new bill it raises some interesting questions and ideas concerning ethics in advertising.

Its now common knowledge that television ads are made louder to draw attention and hopefully be more memorable to the audience, but does this tactic work anymore? In the early days of television advertising this tactic was very clever, however, as the viewers evolve they will become immune to a trick like this. Today’s viewers are much more skeptical of what they see and hear so this cheap trick to attract attention could come off as rude and unnecessary rather than effective. The excessive noise is considered annoying to most and is would make them more likely to change the channel making it counterproductive. Also, assuming that they will be more susceptible to the brand message simply because it is louder can come off as disrespectful and seem like you are insulting their intelligence. I believe that this now practice is on its way out and therefore does not require government intervention. It does not harm anything but the brand’s reputation. It is nothing more than an old ineffective trick that is losing its place in modern advertising.