Ethics and Advertising - Essay Example

Ethics and advertising Advertising continues to play a significant role in modern society. It contributes to raising awareness of the different products and services that suppliers deal with. Given that people who watch the television see approximately 100 television commercials in a single day, advertising makes it easy for consumers in need of various goods and services to find their wants, thus satisfying their needs accordingly. The posters, billboards, and corporate messages available in diverse locations, also serve as a way of communicating to them on various goods and services. This means that advertising does not only respond to the needs of consumers. It also serves to create a desire amongst consumers for a given product or service. Consequently, advertising should be done in the right way. It should help consumers to find solutions to their problems, and not deceive them into buying goods that do not meet their needs. Advertisers ought to conduct their business in an ethical manner, thereby benefitting their business, and the society at large. However, some advertisers get involved in unethical advertising practices, which yield grave results. Therefore, given the importance of advertising in an ethical manner, the following discussion aims at highlighting the various concerns of ethics and advertising. Ethical advertising can be referred to as a form of advertising that takes into account the various benefits and disadvantages associated with advertising. Such advertising minds the interest of the concerned parties, such as consumers, competitors, and the entire society. Ethical advertising seeks to give accurate information that makes a consumer make a sound judgment. This means that the advertising business conducts itself in a fairly, in an honest and forthright manner. More to these, ethical advertising allows the buyers to get good value for the money they spend on purchasing the goods, or acquiring services as they spend based on true information. Ethical advertising does not violate human autonomy. It does not manipulate consumers into purchasing products that that fail to meet their needs. Additionally, ethical advertising provides consumers with an ‘efficient and cost-effective means of giving the consumer information on the basis of which he or she makes a free choice (Arrington, 3). On the other hand, unethical advertising deceives the people concerned. It portrays a false impression of the goods, or services in question, leading to wrong choices. Ethical advertising allows consumers to purchase products in the absence of coercion, deception, manipulation, and any other form of brainwashing (Carson, 4). Such advertising seeks to maintain the autonomy of the consumers, thus ensuring that they make rational decisions. Ethical advertising always considers the target audience. It uses a sensitive approach, for example, when advertising to the children. It takes into account the fact that children have no experience in a diverse range of issues. Ethical advertising also considers the immaturity of the children, and lack of cognitive skills that help in evaluating the credibility of the adverts. More to these, ethical advertising for prescription drugs also ensures it gets considerable attention from regulators as well as lawmakers in the pharmaceutical industry. Ethical advertising also seeks to protect the privacy of the consumers involved in their advertising activities. These include the information that consumers share on social sites, and the products they put in online shopping carts. Given that advertisers use such information to further their advertising efforts ethical advertising seeks to keep the information of the participants as confidential as possible. Ethical advertising creates a number of advantages for the consumers, and the advertising organization. From the customer’s point of view, ethical advertising leads to customer satisfaction. The customers get satisfied with the products and services they acquire, given that their expectations are met by the goods and services. This makes them confident of the advertising organization as they get to fulfill their needs accordingly, and get value for their money. The advertising organization also gains from ethical advertising. This follows the honest messages they communicate to their customers, thus meeting their needs. Consequent to this, the organization builds loyalty among their customers, leading to return purchases. The return purchases then yield a competitive advantage in the organization’s industry, thus boosting the success of the organization. On the other hand, organizations that advertise unethically provide their consumers with wrong information, leading to their dissatisfaction. Dissatisfied consumers always develop a negative attitude towards the organization. They do not make repeat purchases of such goods and services as they do not meet their unique needs. More to these, they inform their peers and friends of the organization’s dishonesty, which draws more people away from the organization’s products. Therefore, the organization fails to develop a stream of loyal customers, which makes it difficult for them to survive in their respective industries. This hinders the growth of the organization, thus affecting its’ prosperity. Various types of advertising account for unethical behavior. Carson outlines deceptive advertising as a type of advertising that can be unethical. This type of advertising causes immense harm to consumers, competitors, as well as the social fabric (1). Therefore, this type of advertising can be termed as unethical. Advertisers communicate false information to the general public, thus giving them a false impression. In addition to this, the advertising process usually aims at making gains from the consumers, which means the success is achieved in an unethical manner. Deceptive advertising also conceals information from the consumers, leading to an inaccurate representation of the good or service in question. Deceptive advertising uses a number of techniques in portraying adverts that impress consumers, thus luring them to making costly economical decisions. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the advertisements get designed in a manner that deceives reasonable consumers to believe in false things (Carson, 2). Consequent to these, the consumers make decisions that affect consumer behavior in a material way. The advertising may also imply a false virtue, though the explicit claims may stand as true. The implied message deceives the consumers, thus making them believe that a certain good possesses a particular characteristic, which stands as false in reality. Such expressions portray false things, which make this form of advertising unethical. Associative advertising also accounts for the perpetration of unethical behavior. It uses virtues that mislead the target audience. In addition, it lures consumers into buying products without an independent desire to better the lives of the consumers. It does this by identifying a non-market good that the target audience tends to have a strong desire for. The advert then identifies the product in question with the non-market good. This non-market good can be friendship, acceptance, and esteem of others. The unethical part of this type of advertising results from the fact that the non-market good cannot satisfy the intended desire. Therefore, this form of advertising deceives the consumers to purchase the product, but they never get to satisfy the implied desire. More to these, such advertising can lead to adverse effects, such as the death of innocent human beings. An example of such advertising relates to the advertising done by Nestle. The organization advertised its infant formula, without paying attention to the well-being of the potential consumers. It induced poor women to buy the formula by associating it with a mother’s love for her children, and depicting the formula as the modern way of feeding children. Consequent to this, the poor women were lured by the advertising. They bought the formula as they wanted to be associated with being modern mothers. More to these, they purchased the product with the intention of showing love for their children. The formula kept them from breastfeeding their babies, thus denying their babies the required nutrition. As a result of this advertising, several women lost their babies, hence highlighting the unethical part of associative advertising. Unethical advertising leads to numerous negative consequences. Organizations have a duty of being socially responsible to the society, which makes them survive. Just like society promotes their businesses, the organizations have a duty of advancing the interests of the society. On the contrary, unethical advertising ruins the society, instead of helping it grow, and become a better place. Such advertising, for example, degrades the ecology. This follows if the unethical advertising advocates for a lifestyle that wastes resources, leading to destruction of the environment. Such destruction of the environment reduces human progress, thus influencing mankind negatively as man seeks to acquire material things, and adapt to a lavish lifestyle. Conclusively, advertising dominates our daily life. The television consists of millions of adverts that raise awareness of the different products that can meet various needs. Other forms of advertising also raise awareness of the products manufacturers design to fulfill different desires. More to these, advertising plays a role of creating desires, thus making people want to purchase certain goods and services. Given the significant role of advertising, organizations ought to ensure that they advertise their products in an ethical manner. They should only promote products that meet the needs of the consumers, and those that improve their well-being. In addition, organizations should not employ mechanisms that deceive consumers, so as to increase their success. This follows from the fact that honesty in advertising leads to loyal customers, while dishonesty leads to failure. Work cited Arrington, Robert. Advertising and Behavior Control. In Bowie, Norman. The Blackwell guide to business ethics. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2002. Print. Carson, Thomas. Ethical Issues in Selling and Advertising. In Bowie, Norman. The Blackwell guide to business ethics. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2002. Print. Read More