JEDDAH, 3 February 2008 — Have you ever wondered why some advertisements in Jeddah show people’s faces while others have the faces marked out?
Well, you aren’t alone. Even the responsible authorities wonder why some advertising agencies still produce signs where the faces of the people in the advertisements are digitally blurred out.
The habit of defacing images stems from a traditional aversion in Saudi Arabia toward depicting the human face in images, such as advertising billboards. But Saudi authorities say there is no law against showing advertisements without the alterations.
“There is no rule or regulation that enforces the deformation of a human figure or face in any advertisement,” Ahmad Al-Zahrani, an official at the Ministry of Information and Culture, told Arab News yesterday.
Nevertheless, some advertising agencies appear averse toward depicting human faces. “What is happening is self-imposed censorship,” said Qaswara Al-Khateeb, head of the advertising committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Khateeb says ad agencies tend to deface their signs in order to avoid any complaints from people, especially authorities, who might use this as a pretext for having the ads removed, or for otherwise getting the agency in trouble.
He said that since most agencies are foreign owned, they tend to be extra cautious in matters that might be interpreted locally as a violation of religious or cultural mores.
Al-Khateeb, who is also a director of Full Stop advertising agency based in Jeddah, said that his agency has been producing both outdoor and magazine advertisements without any defacing to the human forms on their products.
“My agency has produced many outdoor advertisements without blurring the face for many years and we haven’t received any complaint from any authority,” he assured.
Even the authorities one would assume to be most likely to protest seem nonplussed by the concept of showing human faces on advertisements for products and services.
“We only get involved if the issue is against public respect or if it is not an authorized advertisement,” said Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the Makkah Region. He rejected the suggestion that the Commission would go after advertisers who do not deface their images.
However, Aboud Shami, group managing director of Impact BBDO advertising, told Arab News that the Commission has visited his agency in the past — 10 years ago — ordering him not only to blur out human faces but also alter the images of animals, either by blurring them out or drawing lines through their necks.
But today, Shami said, things are different. “We don’t receive any more complaints or visits be members of the Commission,” he said.
Ahmad Asim, Saudi account director at a local advertising agency, said that he used to work with a major international agency seven years ago; there he saw members of the Commission frequently ordering image alteration.
“Since many agencies live by the fear of the past, we still see blurred faces in the outdoor adverts,” he said. “It will remain this way until the issue is clarified.”
