Central Moral Problem Connected with Advertising - Literature review Example

Central Moral Problem Connected with Advertising Introduction to Advertising: The importance of advertising is steadily on the increase in modern society (Foley and Pastor, 1997). It can enhance market performance is it provides useful information to its consumers by enabling companies to promote their product or services and compete with their competitors in a fair way, however on the other hand advertising might adversely affect market performance by using deceptive or fraudulent advertising techniques (Azcuenaga, 1997). If we see the perception of people about the useful information that advertising conveys. The past president of US, Thomas Jefferson has said that “advertisements contain the only truth to be relied on a news paper” and a noted British author H. G. Wells, saw “advertising as legalized lying.” (Azcuenaga,1997). These two views are contradictory to each other and actually since long back there are different perceptions and views about advertising. Moral Problems and Advertising: There are many examples of unethical tactics by advertisers used for various business gains and let us consider one example where you reach a store through viewing an ad and as soon a you reach store you get a message that all the items has been sold out and you are offered an inferior product at the same price or at an increased price. So this is clearly an example of unethical technique using misdirection and deception (Ethics in advertising, 2001). Advertising is a big business and millions of pounds are spend on it every month and therefore some companies try all sorts of tactics and sometimes these tactics might be illegal or immoral (Ethics in advertising, 2001). Unfortunately in today’s world it is becoming more and more morally degraded. In today’s advertising use of pornography, use of women models, hype about the business and business autonomy has become more important than to lure the customers. Use of women in advertising: Images of female bodies are everywhere and women and their body parts sell everything from food to cars (Beauty and body images in the media, n.d.). Now in the today’s advertising new and younger, taller and thinner females are being portrayed and various women magazines are advertising various weight loss ads urging that anyone can lose twenty pounds (Beauty and body images in the media, n.d.). Even in the past ten years, advertisements in various communication mediums have increasingly relied on the explicit sexual appeals of women to sell the products and some of the ads often contain superiority and dominance, sexualizing body parts, fetishism and playfulness and exaggeration (Tallim, 2003). Tallim (2003) have further analyzed some of the ads and found that the highly eroticized portrayals of these young women are emerging over since the last two decades. Various porn industry websites are using some common tactics and have created some well ranked web pages and if you are looking for some information on an actress or model, the search engine offers you a free video of the actress and clicking on a banner ad you are diverted to a page where you are asked to pay money to see the sexy and naked photo of actress and in reality these photos are of someone else and the tactics is totally unethical (Ethics in advertising, 2001). Lying in Advertising: Addleman (2007) has analyzed a typical ad published in a paper where the drug manufacturer claims that a specific product reduces risk of stroke by 48%. Actually he see all the conditions and come to a conclusion that only the data that suits the manufacturer has been used in the advertisement, however some other relevant information has not been shared and so think it is unethical and based on lying. A new form of advertising is also growing fast and critics say such type of advertising is also dishonest advertising and actually companies if are able to lure you through television advertising or billboard or magazine ads are hoping that you will listen to some personal friendly advices (Jennings, 2002). Persuasive Advertising: It is argued that the persuasive advertising overrides the autonomy of consumers and it manipulates without their knowledge and such advertising causes desires in such a way that a necessary condition of autonomy, the possibility of decision is removed (Crisp, 1987). Many economist and social theorists have studied the impact of persuasive analysis on people. A few researchers have analyzed whether the impact of such advertising is subversive or not (Advertising and the Social Conditions of Autonomy, 2005). Case Study: Two researchers Drumwright and Murphy conducted a study to find the ethical issues that are more common in all advertising professionals and conducted in depth interview with 51 advertising practitioners generally senior persons from various departments such as creative, media, accounts services etc. who work in 29 different agencies to examine how they perceive, process and think about the ethical issues (Drumwright and Murphy, 2004). Authors found two persistent problems regarding sensitivity to ethical issues and labeled these problems as moral muteness – the unwillingness of practitioners to acknowledge and discuss ethical problems and moral myopia – the inability to see clearly ethical issues when they arise (Drumwright and Murphy, 2004). The significant finding of the study helps to elucidate why some of the advertising practitioners do not see these ethical issues. The study also brought out the significant differences before various layers of successful advertising professionals. Drumwright and Murphy (2004) also foresee the need to change in paradigm shift so that these ethical issues are properly addressed and instead of repeating the “customer is always right” phrase they need to discuss ethical issues with their subordinates and other related people. Further not only advertisers, marketing professionals are also advised to look into the ethical issues and come out with ethical advertising needs. Conclusion: Although it is true that a large number of marketers are adopting unethical methods of advertising. Some of the major moral issues connected with the advertising include lying to the customers, persuasive advertising and use of women bodies for selling product or services. I personally feel that although majority of advertiser’s uses unethical methods, however it wouldn’t be minimized unless and until the advertisers and marketers together don’t decide against such unethical methods. The number of people using such unethical methods for business gain is continuously growing and I don’t think that it is really easy to control the situation and convince the marketers to obey ethical issues. I also personally feel that there is need of paradigm shift and large multinational marketers should come forward and provide examples to the small companies and business houses. Although since last decade CEOs of businesses of all sizes are now realizing that the only way to have a successful company is to act and conduct business in an ethical manner (Business Ethics Tips, 2002). The last but not the least step is to make law stringent so that marketers or advertisers avoid crossing the ethical border. Although there are laws against ambush advertising in some of the countries but these also needs to be made stronger. There is a need to put the ethical issues before public and educate the public at large about the ethical issues. The strict and strong provision can be helpful in minimizing the issue. References: Addleman, Frank. "Drug Advertising - Are The Drug Companies Lying To Us?." EzineArticles 11 April 2007. 29 April 2007 . “Advertising and the Social Conditions of Autonomy.” Roodo. 19 October 2005. 29 April 2007. http://blog.roodo.com/ethics/archives/611833.html Azcuenaga, Mary L. “THE ROLE OF ADVERTISING AND ADVERTISING REGULATION IN THE FREE MARKET”. Federal Trade Commission. 8 April 1997. 29 April 2007 http://www.ftc.gov/speeches/azcuenaga/turkey97.shtm “Beauty and Body Image in the Media”. Media Awareness Network. 29 April 2007. http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_beauty.cfm “Business Ethics Tips”. Better Business Bureau. November 2002. 29 April 2007. http://www.bbb.org/BizEthics/tips.asp Crisp, Roger. “Persuasive advertising, autonomy and the creation of desire”. SpringerLink. July 1987. 29 April 2007. http://www.springerlink.com/content/x70m7256x2257148/ Drumwright, Minette E. and Patrick E. Murphy, “Ethics and Advertising: Moral Muteness, Moral Myopia, and Moral Imagination,” Association for Consumer Research. 2004. 29 April 2007. http://www.acrwebsite.org/topic.asp?artid=224 “Ethics in advertising” Rubak. 8 July 2001. 29 April 2007. http://rubak.com/article.cfm?ID=13 Foley, John, P. and Pastor, Pierfranco. “Pontifical Council for social Communication: Ethics in Advertising” Vatican. 22 February 1997. 29 April 2007. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/documents/rc_pc_pccs_doc_22021997_ethics-in-ad_en.html Jennings, Peter. “Advertising Legalized Lying? Critics Feel New Style of Advertising Dishonest.” Commercial Alert. 23 August 2002. 29 April 2007 http://www.commercialalert.org/news/featured-in/2002/08/advertising-legalized-lying-critics-feel-new-style-of-advertising-dishonest Tallim, Jane, “Sexualized Images in Advertising”. Media Awareness Network. May 2003. 29 April 2003. http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/articles/advertising_marketing/sex_images_in_ads.cfm Read More