EOC Week 2: Ethics In Advertising

Advertizing seems to be one of the least trusted professions. Jack Neff states in his Advertizing Age article,
"In a 2007 Gallup/USA Today Poll, advertising practitioners ranked third from last among professions in public perception of honesty and ethics, just ahead of lobbyists and car salesmen and below congressmen, state officeholders and business executives." (http://adage.com/article/news/ad-industry-battles-back-bad-reputation/144288/)

Why should anyone want to maintain a high ethical standard when dealing with advertising? Some may consider advertising under a category closer to art and even perhaps giving it license under the guise of “freedom of expression.” But as a webpage from carol.edu plainly states, “This is an interesting point.  Art is good, as are tasty, witty, entertaining things, as opposed to tawdry, superficial things, full of moral squalor.  But can we believe an advertiser has a moral duty to provide such things??  I think so: by this argument.

1. We all have the moral duty to do good when reasonable and to avoid evil when possible.
2. Advertisements (and media in general) that are tasty, witty, entertaining does good for our culture, making it more pleasant and humane, while tawdriness, superficiality, and moral squalor harms the culture.
3. Advertising has a great effect on our culture in general, making this moral duty is all the more serious.

Therefore, advertisers have a moral duty to create tasty, witty, entertaining advertisements when this is reasonable, and to avoid tawdry, superficial and morally squalid advertising when that can be avoided.  The burden of proof would be upon the advertisers to show why in any particular case the demand to make advertising tasty, witty, and entertaining was an unreasonable demand, or why tawdry and superficial advertisings couldn't have been avoided.” (https://www.carroll.edu/msmillie/busethics/ethadvertising.htm)

 
























It's not worth it to lie to the customer. The loss of them, your credibility and respect for your advertizing company is a real possibility. As Chris Moore says in his article for the Advertizing Educational Foundation, "Advertisers know this. Ads for reputable companies almost never lie. The cost of being caught out is simply too high. It can take years to undo the damage. Also, the people inside the company want to be able to look at themselves in the mirror. We often think of business people as belonging to some other, vaguely malevolent species, but remember that most of them are you in a few years." (http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/speaker_pres/data/6000)

Here are three examples of advertising gone awry. Do these seem ethical?