When you turn on your TV, chances are high that you will be hit by a myriad of advertisement with brands fighting for your attention. They range from product sales to select services down to betting confirms.
You are, however, less likely to encounter an advert from a law firm or in very rare circumstances, see a metered down medical advert with very measured message. It is all by design.
According to the Advocate's Rules and the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board Act, the two professions are considered noble and allowing adverts will dilute respect they have cultivated from the public.
Medical Field
Before 2011, all advertisement of any kind from medical practitioners or hospitals had been banned by the state to cultivate trust within the profession.
At the time, the ban was justified to due to uncertainty of the interests from physicians at a time the industry was working hard to maintain patient trust of their doctors devoid of hospitals' need to boost profits.
The industry argued at the time that it was largely governed by trust from patients to their physicians to place their lives in the latter's hands. The vice allowed physician to maintain a patient-physician relationship.
In 2011, the physicians however successfully lobbied for the law to be lessened with parameters permitting interested hospitals to advertise their products.
Their call was heeded by a revision in the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board Act permitting adverts that were regulated by the law.
In the resultant laws, medical adverts are required to be objective, true and dignified as well as respectful of the professional ethics of the profession. The advertisers are also prohibited from attempt to denigrate other practitioners or health institutions or the profession and should not infringe on patient confidentiality.
"Nothing in these Rules derogates from the power of the Board to rule on the desirability or otherwise of a practitioner, a health institution or of the proposed or actual advertisements," read the statement in part.
Law Career
In Law, advocates are still banned from undertaking TV, radio or billboard adverts.
A lawyer told Kenyans.co.ke in a past interview that the Kenya Legal industry was aligned to that of the UK where nobility was paramount.
“Kenyan law borrows a lot from the UK which considers law as a noble profession or a calling such as medicine. The laws were made to protect the nobility of the practice and discourage people from viewing it as a business,” he explained.
The lawyer insisted that if allowed to advertise like other industries, the profession would be flooded with people whose only goal was to make money.
“You know adverts are about touting a product's strengths and guaranteeing certain outcomes which cannot be guaranteed in court. A soap can claim to kill 99% of germs but with cases, you cannot promise what the judge will rule,” he added.
The lawyers are, however, allowed to advertise on limited media such as newspaper, magazine, booklet, periodical or journal.
