The French Connection UK billboard visible from the Tullamarine Freeway. Photo: John Woudstra

WHEN Robert Doyle recently denounced the massive FCUK billboard on the side of a warehouse building in North Melbourne as ''an insulting and gratuitous blot on our urban landscape'', he was articulating a view shared by many Melburnians. And when, a few days later, it was reported that the sign was to be replaced by a less ''offensive'' one - the clothing company's acronym giving way to its fuller name, French Connection UK - it appeared the lord mayor had struck a victory for righteousness.

It was quite a result given that he had (correctly) claimed in the Sunday Herald Sun on September 4 that his council had ''no control over the content of the sign - or indeed of any sign''.

Sources have revealed to The Age that French Connection was in fact already well into discussions with the City of Melbourne about changing the sign when the lord mayor penned his opinion piece. It appears his exhortation to ''pull down this sign'' was made safe in the knowledge that it was already going to happen.

And yet there's no denying Doyle was on to something when he expressed his distaste for the oversized double entendre that greets Melburnians at the northern entrance to the Bolte Bridge, and it taps into something far broader than just that one sign. The fact is, Australians are being subjected to more outdoor advertising than ever before - and some of it we just don't like.

A 2007 AC Nielsen survey conducted on behalf of the Outdoor Media Association found 13 per cent of Australians have a negative view of outdoor advertising, which includes billboards, hoardings and ads on buses, trams and public transport shelters, among other things . (Forty-nine per cent were ''supportive'' of the medium and 38 per cent were neutral.)

Since that survey was conducted the industry has grown substantially. Between 2002 and 2008, the sector grew ''by a massive 74 per cent'', according to the OMA.

In 2010, revenues rebounded from the dark days of the global financial crisis to a record $477 million, up 19 per cent on the previous year. In other words, outdoor advertising in Australia is booming. But compared with other forms of advertising, so too are the complaints.

Outdoor advertising represents about 4 per cent of the total advertising market, yet in 2010 four of the 10 most-complained-about ads were on billboards. Only three of those 10 cases were upheld - that is, decided against the advertiser - and two of them were billboard ads.

The Advertising Standards Bureau, the complaints-handling arm of the self-regulating advertising industry, investigates about 500 cases a year across all forms of advertising. About 50 of these cases, or 10 per cent, are upheld. But of the 10 billboards that were most complained about between January 2010 and July 2011, five were upheld. That's a 50 per cent strike rate - five times the overall average.

If there's something special about the billboard as a medium that makes it more likely to offend, it's the fact you can't turn it off - and you can't decide who sees it. In the words of the Senate review of the National Classification Scheme, whose report was tabled in June: ''Lack of choice about whether a person is exposed to outdoor advertising distinguishes this form of advertising from other mediums.''

The Senate's legal and constitutional affairs references committee noted there had been calls for a blanket G rating to be applied to all outdoor advertising ''on the basis that it is visible to a general audience'' and recommended that ''to the extent possible, the National Classification Scheme should apply equally to all content, regardless of the medium of delivery''.

That would be a disaster, insists Fiona Jolly, chief executive of the Advertising Standards Bureau. ''I would never advocate for a regulatory system when self-regulation works so well,'' says Jolly, who has previously advised the Attorney-General's Department on censorship matters.

If all ads were to be classified, they would first need to be seen, and that would be a highly costly exercise. According to the industry's peak body, the Australian Association of National Advertisers, more than 30,000 ads were produced for the outdoor market in 2010. ''It would not give any better community outcomes that would justify the use of taxpayers' money,'' says Jolly.

She cites the low level of complaints - the most-complained-about ad of 2010 attracted just 220 submissions to the ASB - as proof that the advertising industry understands the sensitivities of the wider community.

But critics of the system insist the rate of complaints is a poor measure of what the community really thinks. A Victorian government report into the portrayal of women in outdoor advertising in 2002 cited research that found the rate of conversion from someone being offended to someone actually making a complaint was incredibly low.

''Of the female respondents who had seen something inappropriate in outdoor advertising (37 per cent), almost two in every three (62 per cent) had thought about complaining, but only 4 per cent of those who thought about complaining did so,'' the report said.

Even the regulator concedes there's no way of knowing what the real rate of offence is. ''We tried and in the end came to the view that one complaint is the tip of the iceberg really, but how big or deep that iceberg is you can't tell,'' says Jolly.

The failings of self-regulation are not just numerical, says Melinda Tankard Reist, a writer and founder of the lobby group Collective Shout, which campaigns against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of children in advertising and the media.

''The self-regulatory system simply means advertisers and marketers can get away with anything,'' she says. Her particular concern is with the proliferation of images of women and teenage girls in highly sexualised or suggestive poses, and the fact that such images are on view for everyone, including young children, at all times.

''If a man were to put up images of naked or semi-naked women in the workplace, that's considered sexual harassment, but if they're up on a billboard or the side of a bus, somehow that's considered OK. It's a double standard and you wouldn't get away with it anywhere else,'' Tankard Reist says.

Collective Shout operates from a leftist-feminist position, but finds itself in the same camp as certain Christian groups and the family lobby in calling for tighter regulation of the industry.

But regardless of where these groups are coming from, the industry view is that they are misguided. ''When we're talking about exposure for children I think billboards are the least of our worries,'' Todd Sampson, chief executive of advertising agency Leo Burnett said on The Gruen Transfer on September 8.

''We're better off trying to world-proof our children rather than childproof the world, because it's just not going to happen.''

The regulation stick was, however, wielded in the Reclaiming Public Space report tabled in the House of Representatives in July.

In the introduction to this report, the chairman, Labor's Graham Perrett, attacked what he identified as the advertising industry's lack of responsiveness to community concerns. ''If the industry does not demonstrate over the next few years that self-regulation can appropriately operate within the bounds of community expectations for appropriate outdoor advertising, then the committee strongly recommends that the Australian government institute regulatory measures.

''This report has listened to the Australian community and, on behalf of the Australian community, it says enough is enough. It is time to reclaim our public spaces.''

But despite the tough talk, the report ultimately opted to maintain the self-regulatory regime, albeit with a threat to move to regulation if the industry is unable to demonstrate by June 2013 that it has lifted its game.

As chief executive of the Outdoor Media Association, Charmaine Moldrich says she has already begun to act on some of the issues raised in the report. The OMA is running education sessions on community standards for its members (who control the billboard spaces, but not their content), and advisory and content review services have been in place since August.

But Moldrich insists this isn't a case of the industry being forced to act. ''I think it would have happened without the reviews because we'd been talking about it at boardroom level for a while. It's about a mode of doing business that makes your industry look good out there in the community. I don't think we were driven by the stick of regulation so much as the carrot of success.''

She insists the media focuses disproportionately on the rare negatives in outdoor media rather than positives, for example the OMA's funding of public infrastructure such as bus shelters and rubbish bins, and its donation of $15 million a year of ad space to public service and charitable campaigns.
''What we're really talking about here is how powerful billboards are,'' she says.

''They're on 24/7. It's the largest broadcasting medium as the media fragments. The fact you can't turn it on or off is a strength, and in a very small amount of cases it's a weakness; but most of the stuff that's sold on the medium is completely benign. It's the stuff that makes up a capitalist society. It's advertising, and if you find it offensive, I'm not sure where you want to live.''

The OMA insists the numbers prove that most of the time, the industry is spot on in its interpretation of community standards. In 2010, just 66 billboard ads attracted complaints. Of those, only seven were upheld. ''In other words, 99.98 per cent of outdoor advertisements in 2010 were in accordance with prevailing community standards,'' the OMA said recently.

What's more, Moldrich adds, some of those complaints were very narrowly focused. ''There were vegetarians who complained about a lamb ad … people who complained about the anti-smoking ads because their children were horrified because mummy once smoked. Some got hundreds of complaints, some only got one, but the moment you complain you set off the system.''

The billboard that triggers the most popular outrage is the Australian Medical Institute's Longer Lasting Sex ad. The funny thing is, it was banned by the ASB in 2008 (that it lingers so clearly in the memory attests to its power as a longer-lasting source of irritation).

Another frequently invoked ad, for Windsor Smith shoes, was last seen in 2000 (at which time the company declared the outrage it had provoked was ''the best branding exercise we could have ever asked for'', and valued the coverage at $4 million).

The ASB's Fiona Jolly and the OMA's Charmaine Moldrich are adamant that the fact that such old cases are always dragged up proves just how much the industry has moved on.

And to Moldrich, the fact that another Australian Medical Institute ad - ''Be a man and … hold your load'' - was among 2010's most complained about billboards (it was upheld) in no way undermines that argument. ''Ultimately, people in a democracy know they can complain to someone,'' she says. ''That's why you have vocal minorities getting so much airplay at the moment, whether it's about the carbon tax or lamb ads.

''I don't have a problem with that. We live in a democracy, that's how it works and there are good things about it and bad things about it. But it's a system that's working.''

Karl Quinn is entertainment editor.