Paddy McGuiness presents Inside the Factory (Picture: BBC)
The BBC must adhere to strict rules when it comes to the mention of brands.
If they don’t, shows like Inside the Factory could end up being fined tens of thousands of pounds… unless a clever hack is used to avoid costly repercussions.
Grants, royalties, and rental income all contribute to the public corporation’s upkeep, but license fees pay for a lot of the output. As such, they have to ensure impartiality and take every precaution to not sell one brand to viewers.
This can make filming series such a lot more difficult than it may be for perhaps ITV or Channel 4 to air similar programming. (Although, the rival broadcasters also have to follow the detailed Broadcasting Code that protects audiences).
The show involves Paddy McGuinness visiting manufacturing facilities of some of our most beloved brands. The current series, previously hosted by Gregg Wallace, has so far seen Paddy learning about the operations at Warburtons, Guylian, Walkers, and Graze.
In the episodes, Paddy does everything he can to avoid using any brand names. The smart tactic is usually pretty seamless, as he can use words like bread, chocolate and flapjacks. However, the Quaver special threw up more complications as the snack is usually referred to by its brand name.
Paddy often substitutes the brand name (Picture: BBC/Voltage TV/Michael Rees)
‘I’m LoL watching Inside the Factory on BBC1 – they can’t use the brand name of Walkers Quavers – so they are having to replace the name on every sentence but they are using something different every time,’ wrote David Graham after Tuesday’s episode. The substitutes ranged from ‘cheese curls’ to the ambiguous ‘savoury snack’.
‘Drinking game – have a shot every time they skirt around using the name ‘Quavers’ in this episode,’ joked Chris Peryagh.
‘Why can they not say “quaver” when they’ve said the company name,’ asked Oli from Reading.
Well, Oli from Reading, this isn’t just Paddy testing how advanced his vocabulary is, and he didn’t just get gifted a thesaurus for Christmas either. Instead it is a purposeful decision helping to stop the BBC getting in a whole load of trouble for breaking broadcaster rules.
They are initially allowed to highlight where they are – a Walkers factory – and name the product as long as they ‘ensure that visual and aural references, including verbal and musical references, to products, services, trade marks, brand names and slogans are editorially justified’, their guidelines outline. In this case, it is acceptable to inform audiences where they are so they can understand what they’re watching.
However repeated mentions are unnecessary, as the BBC states: ‘We must take into account the potential cumulative effect of repetition of a reference when planning to feature a product, brand, trademark or service many times on our output over a limited period, to ensure that this does not lead to undue prominence.’ In this assessment they must take into consideration the programme repeats and marketing too.
Chat show guests can promote their new projects, but there are still rules(Picture: PA Wire)
When are BBC allowed to mention brands?
Some viewers may wonder how the BBC are able to mention a product in other instances, such as on The One Show or on The Graham Norton Show, when a guest might be promoting their new book, film or music.
To get around it they must again avoid ‘undue prominence’ and ensure they are ‘editorially justified’ – those old chesnuts come up a lot: ‘Any related products should not be used as a prop unless editorially justified and any references, particularly close-ups, must also be editorially justified and should be appropriately limited.’
‘Under the BBC’s editorial guidelines we are permitted to refer to commercial products and brands in our programmes if they are editorially justified,’ the broadcaster told Metro.
Confusion also came after the Gavin and Stacey finale, when Nessa (Ruth Jones), Smithy (James Corden), and the titular characters (Mathew Horne and Joanna Page) visited KFC and discussed at length what they would order. The 90-minute show also included John Lewis, Strava and Samsung. It wasn’t the first time the popular takeaway spot was used. In series one, Nessa and Smithy famously used a corn on the cob as a metaphor for bedroom activities.
A Reddit thread was set up to ask how it was possible. ‘Thought the BBC didn’t allow product placement and promotions, but there were a few heavily promoted stores/products in the finale. Or it felt that way to me. Did anyone else think the same or was I just focusing on the wrong things?!’ asked BusMajestic5835. There is a justifiable reason for the inclusion – they are allowed to reflect reality and the takeaway is part of it.
KFC has featured in Gavin and Stacey twice (Picture: BBC)
The BBC website further explains: ‘We need to be able to reflect the real world and this will involve referring to products and services in our output. A product can include references to organisations, to people, such as artists or performers, or to artistic works, such as films, books or musical tracks. However, there must be no undue prominence of products, services or trademarks in our content.’
It needs to be taken into consideration whether visual references are necessary for the show’s plot, and both close-ups of real products as well as visibility of them in other shots should be avoided.
They must also use ‘a wide range are used over time’ to avoid giving preferential treatment to one brand.
The inclusion of the brands was defended on the Reddit thread, with FlurryOfBlows summarising: ‘Gavin and Stacey has always excelled in its celebration of the mundanity of life of the middle class, which would be incomplete without its relationship to real brands. Off the top of my head in the 2008 Xmas special, Stacey is working at M&S, Ness gives everyone Celebrations, Bryn and Gwen drink a mint Baileys and Gavin wears nothing but Fred Perry.
‘This show is observational comedy in sitcom form, and utterly excels due to the naturalistic performances of the core cast and the relatability of the script.’
BBC along with all TV channels must also abide by Ofcom’s rules, which ensure they maintain editorial independence and control over programming. This means not allowing a brand to have control over programming. It protects viewers from surreptitious advertising, and risk of financial harm.
What would be the repercussions of a rule break?
The BBC know how to stay on the right side of the Broadcasting code (Picture: BBC/Voltage TV/Michael Rees)
If there ever was a complaint, it would be dealt with through the BBC’s complaints process.
If Ofcom also became involved and considered that the BBC has seriously, deliberately, repeatedly or recklessly breached a requirement of the Broadcasting Code, it can impose a statutory sanction.
The sanctions Ofcom could impose: issue a direction not to repeat a programme are; issuing a direction to include a correction or a statement of Ofcom’s findings or restricting access to a programme on BBC iPlayer. They could also ask the BBC to provide additional information to users prior to the selection of a specified programme on the BBC’s on-demand programme services.
Finally they could be given a financial penalty. In the case of a serious, repeated, deliberate or reckless breach by the BBC, there is no minimum fine and the maximum is £250,000.
It should be noted that the vast majority of Broadcasting Code breaches, whether by the BBC or any other broadcaster, do not meet the threshold for consideration of a sanction. Instead, they result in a breach being recorded in a published decision, and the breach being held on the relevant broadcaster’s compliance record.
Inside the Factory airs tonight at 8pm on BBC One.
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