Ethical Issue - Does Sex Appeal - Essay Example

? and The art of advertising is fast changing with the rapid technological changes. The increase in competition for the market by advertiser has not made advertising any easier. This has led to the use of sexuality to increase attention. The problem is that there is excessive use of that approach by advertisers all in the bid of increasing their profitability. This raises the issue of whether or not sex appeals in advertising and whether it is ethical to use sexually suggestive adverts to increase profitability. This paper, drawing support from the various media theories, tries to explain the social costs of such advertising approach, the responsibility an advertiser ahs to protect the indirect audience and how the advertiser can protect himself from being unethical when advertising. 1. The Social Costs Associated With Sexually Suggestive Advertising Advertising is a paid form of marketing by a sponsor of ideas, products of services. Advertising is an important tool in marketing and branding since it can be used to modify and drive consumer behavior (Gould, 1994). Through advertising an audience can be persuaded, encouraged to buy a product or otherwise manipulated. The essence of advertising is to create a product image through associating the product with certain desirable values. Of late, many advertisers are increasingly using sexuality to sell their products. Many researches that have been conducted have come to the conclusion that the use of sexually suggestive adverts is more effective than the plain one (Reichert, 2002). This has led to advertisers employing this technique even in products that are not related to one’s sexuality just to attract attention. The use of sexually suggestive adverts started a while ago. Only then, the characters used were not as suggestive as those used these days. Today’s consumers are exposed to ten times more sex advertising than those that lived in the 1940s (Donaldson and Werhane, 1999). This sex appeal approach is proving detrimental to the society raising the question whether it is moral to use sex appeal to channel attention to an advert. The media has a major influence on the behavior and attitudes of the consumers, be it the traditional or the new media. There are several media theories that can be used to support the effect the media has and how these effects impact as social costs. The first theory is the social cognitive theory. This theory was advanced by Neal Miller and John Dollard in 1941. It is not purely a media theory as it is also applied in psychology, medicine, social work and education. This theory posits that human beings acquire a major part of their knowledge through observing others’ actions and experiences (Donaldson and Werhane, 1999). It implies that people have a high tendency of copying what they perceive as good to them. According to this theory, a consumer will be driven by cues and then respond to them in the hope of gaining the desired results. In advertising context this involves replication of the actions, dressing or holding to values that the models in the adverts purports to. The social cognitive theory complements the media effects theory. This theory posits the media as a powerful tool that can be used to set the agenda within a society. According to the proponents of this theory, it is easy to influence the public by showing them what need to be seen and thus influencing their behaviors and attitudes through the same. Advertisers are using this theory of effects to influence consumer behavior by repeatedly airing their adverts in broadcast media and placing them in the print media (Zillmann, 2000). There are several researches that have been conducted to show how the media affects behavior and attitude and how people observe and replicate what they have seen in the media in their social life. A good example that corroborates these theories is a research conducted by Albert Bandura in his paper titled “Bobo Doll Behavior: A study of Aggression”. In this research a group of children were divided into two; one was exposed to violent scenes in a film while the other was not. Bandura then observed how the different sets of children later played with their Bobo dolls. He observed that those that were exposed to violent behaviors played with their dolls in a violent manner while the control group did not (Bayraktar, 2011). Having confirmed that the media has an influence and that people learn by observing others, it is important to investigate the negative social impacts that it can have. There are a number of negative externalities that are associated with sexually suggestive adverting. The first one, according to Zillmann (2000), a researcher, is that this approach of advertising promotes violence. Most of this violent behavior is directed towards women by men. Researchers have not been able to conclusively state how these two variables relate but the initial research indicates so. The other social cost is that sexual advertising mostly use women and less men. As such women are increasingly getting devalued (Reichert, 2002). A research by Baytaktar Ahmet (2011) on whether it is ethical to use women as marketing instrument established that the continuous use of women in adverts is making them lose value in the society and making them more or less sex objects. Lastly, sexually suggestive advertising promotes promiscuity, especially among adolescents, by increasing their inclination towards having sex and committing rape (Zillman, 2000). 2. The Responsibility of an Advertiser to Indirect Targets Sexually suggestive advertising is selling more than the traditional plain product advertising (Gould, 1994). And it is becoming popular as time goes by; many researchers and advertising agencies are using this approach. But advertising uses the media, and occasionally even the people who do not fall within the target audience have to see the advert. Children are the most susceptible lot and deserve to be shielded from this type of advertising. Most parents will not tolerate even the mildest sexual innuendo in an advert in front of their children (Zillmann, 2000). They are therefore taking measures to protect their little sons and daughters from their negative effects. But the new media has brought about an entirely new dimension of accessibility making it harder for parents to protect their children. The duty therefore falls on the advertiser to make sure that they design ways to exclude as much as possible the indirect target audience from seeing and getting influenced by the advert. The social contract theory and the social responsibility theory can be applied to explain the responsibility that the advertiser has to protect the indirect audience from any harm that may be carried in the advert. The Social contract, in business and advertising context, states that a business derives its legitimacy from the society where it is situated. As such, a business, just like a normal person, has to adhere to the rules, values, norms and more of that society. The business owner owes a duty of care to the members of the society and in turn benefits from the goodwill, which is an important aid during advertising as it forms the largest part of brand association by the consumers (Donaldson and Werhane, 1999). The theory implies that a business cannot survive without the cooperation and most importantly the commitment of the society. The social responsibility theory is a media theory used in advertising and states that since the media people exert so much influence on their audience they sieve what they feed the audience for the good of the audience. This theory too presupposes that advertisers owe the society a duty of care. An advertiser therefore should make necessary efforts to shield children and other indirect audience from the harmful effects of his adverts and should not give preference to profitability instead of morality as the business can only survive with the support of the society. A good example is given in a research by Bayraktar (2011) where a lotion-manufacturing company decided to place a billboard across a school. On that billboard there was a picture of a scantily dressed lady who had posed in sexually suggestive position. The students would see the advert at least twice every day. After 2 months, cases of premarital sex among students had increased and so had rape cases. The students’ parents staged the process and the bill board was then removed. Despite this move, notes Bayraktar, the company’s brand image had been dented. Brand recall is what a consumer is reminded of when he or she thinks about the product; undoubtedly, their bad image evoked bad emotions and consequently low profitability. Advertisers can shield the untargeted audience through better scheduling and placing of their adverts. For example, for those products that target the elderly people they can be aired late in the night when children are sleeping to minimize the chances of their morals being corrupted. Also, selective advertising through the internet can significantly reduce the unintended consequences of advertising (Reichert, 2002). 3. How Can Advertisers Protect Themselves From This Problem? There are several theoretical frameworks that can be used by advertisers when confronted with the issue of whether it is ethical to use sexual innuendoes in advertising so as to increase attention. The first theory is for those who would like to continue pursuing that approach when advertising. The media reception theory is a theory that states that the audience plays an active and important part in the interpretation of the message passed across to them. It offers insight into the interaction between the text and the reader. It emphasizes the point that no message is complete by itself, the motives of the audience complete the message in that one hears and sees what his mind is comprehended and wants to (Zillmann, 2000). Using this theory, an advertiser could argue that it is the audience that gives the message the unethical or immoral sense through their subjective construction of meaning. The general feeling, however, is that advertisers need to protect their audience and themselves from getting into trouble with activists. The brand of the company depends of consumer perception and positive awareness. The cultivation theory should help shape the advertiser’s resolution. It states that extensive exposure to sexuality increases the chances of an adolescent assenting to non-marital sexual behavior. They later on lose the interest to get married as demonstrated by Donaldson and Werhane (1999) research. In response, they proposed that advertisers can better protect themselves by being guided by the utilitarian theory. This theory stated that for a behavior or an undertaking to be considered ethical then there must be a good balance between the good over the bad and the aggregate utility must be maximized. The ethically right actions, according to them, are those that are capable of producing the greatest happiness and good to the society. Advertisers should thus protect themselves by assessing their actions in terms of desirability of their consequences. They should keep in mind that undesirable consequences may make them lose their legitimacy in the society they are operating in and without this support no business can survive (Bayraktar, 2011). References Bayraktar, A. (2011). Is it ethical to use women as a marketing instrument? Global Conference on Business and Finance Proceedings, 6(1), 250-260. Donaldson, T., & Werhane, P. (1999). Ethical Issues in Business: A Philosophical Approach. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Gould, S. (1994). Sexuality and Ethics in Advertising: A Research Agenda and Policy Guideline Perspective. Journal of Advertising, 23(3), 73-80. Reichert, T. (2002). Sex in advertising research: A review of content, effects and functions of sexual information on consumer advertising. Annual Review of Sex Research, 13(1), 241-273. Zillmann, D. (2000). Influence of unrestrained access to erotica on adolescents and young adults’ dispositions and toward sexuality. Journal of Adolescent Health, 27(5), 41-44. Read More