Advertising Ethics

 Definition of Advertising

 Primary function of Advertisings

 Commercial Advertising and its features

 Advertisements can succeed in 2 ways:

1) by creating desire for the seller’s product

in consumers

2) by creating a belief in consumers

Various features of ethical aspects of advertising

• Social Effects of Advertising

 Psychological Effects of Advertising
 Advertising and waste
 Advertising and Market Power

• Advertising and the creation of Consumer Desires

Advertising and its Effects on Consumer Beliefs

All communication involves three

terms:
 the author(s)
 the medium
 the audience
Ethical issues in Marketing Communications

Ethics in our context involves matters

of right and wrong, or moral, conduct
pertaining to any aspect of marketing
communications

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 The Ethics of Targeting

• Ethical debate—practice of targeting

products and communications efforts to
segments that, for various psychosocial and
economic reasons, are vulnerable to
marketing communications.

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 Targeting to Children and Teens

• Products targeted to kids are unnecessary and

the communications involved are exploitative
• Use of posters, book covers, free magazines,
advertising, and other so-called learning tools
• Placing products in movies with tie-in
merchandise programs

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 Targeting to Children and Teens

• Targeting adult products to preadults—Miller Brewing

Company— “bolder” beer
• Use of unacceptable images—cartoons—greatest
recent controversy is Joe Camel and Camel cigarettes
• Marketing of adult-oriented entertainment products to
children and teens:
Violent films, video games, and music

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Is Targeting Unethical or Just Good Marketing?

Two arguments:
• Targeting benefits rather than harms
consumers—provide consumer with products
best suited to their particular needs and wants
• Concerned not with fulfilling consumers’ needs
and wants, but rather with exploiting consumer
vulnerabilities

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Ethical Issues in Packaging and Branding

Four Aspects:
1) Label information
2) Packaging graphics
3) Packaging safety
4) Environmental implications

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 Ethical Issues in Online Marketing
• Overlap with ethics on advertising and promotions
• Privacy is the most important ethical issue with
online marketing
• Invade individual’s privacy rights by selling
information to other sources without the consumer’s
consent

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Fostering Ethical Marketing Communications

The Golden Act in a way that you would want others

Rule to act toward you

Take only actions that would be

The
viewed as proper by an objective
Professional
panel of your professional
Ethics colleagues

“Would l feel comfortable

The TV test explaining this action on
television to the general public?”
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 Elements of Deception
• Misleading.
• Reasonable consumer.
• Material.

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 Information Regulation
Corrective advertising

A firm that misleads consumers should

have to use future advertisements to
rectify any deceptive impressions it has
created in consumers’ minds

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Thank You