- Respondents to the Call for Evidence were also asked about shopping for their child/children over the last year and whether they had come across clothes, toys, games, music videos or other products that were not appropriate for the age group they were aimed at. Of the 873 people who answered this question, 389 answered 'Often' and 388 answered ‘Occasionally’.
- Despite these concerns, when parents were asked whether they had made a complaint about something they felt was not appropriate for their child/ children to see, only 188 out of the 904 responding to the question said that they had.
Source: TNS Omnibus Survey, 2011 and Review Call for Evidence
These relatively low rates of complaint may reflect the fact we have already observed (in the Introduction) that commercialisation and sexualisation issues are not the top—most priority for parents. Some business and industry contributors to this Review have certainly
interpreted a low level of complaints as a sign of low concern.Yet we have also heard from parents and other contributors to the Review about the barriers – real or perceived – which prevent some parents from making their views known. In the face of these barriers, and since the true extent of parental concern is not currently reflected in complaints statistics, it is simply not good enough for businesses and industry to say there is no real issue.Despite some good practice, notably from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the consumer complaints landscape is complex, confusing and inconsistent and certainly does not encourage parents to voice their concerns or make complaints. Our omnibus survey showed that the majority of parents (92 per cent) have never complained about things (for example, products and adverts) whether in public places, on television, on the internet, in a newspaper or magazine that they felt were inappropriate for children because of sexual content. This was because they have never needed to (43 per cent), they didn't think anything would be done (22 per cent), didn't know who to complain to (15 per cent) or didn't get round to it (13 per cent) (Figure 12).
