Socio-Economic and Ethical Implications of Advertising – a Perceptual Study

Every day, companies present the people with advertisements everywhere they go. Advertisements have become very prevalent in today’s society nowadays focusing in on a negative connotation. Advertisement has become an effective way for producers to display their new products. In present day, they come in forms of billboards, flyers, e-mails, and even text messages. It is widely known that companies create advertisements to persuade people to buy specific products or goods; however, it is not widely known that advertisements can make a negative impact on today’s society. The companies manipulate people’s mind and emotions, swaying people by new promotions and therefore generating a strong desire to fit into the society, that causes them to make inessential expenditures. Advertisements pose a critical impact on the American culture.

For the longest time now, advertising has played a huge role in how we identify ourselves in the United States with the American culture, and how others identify themselves with all the cultures of the rest of the world as well. It guides us in making everyday decisions, such as what items we definitely need to invest our money on, how to dress in-vogue, and what mindset we should have to prosper the most. Although advertising does help make life easier for most, at the same time it has negative affects on the people of society as well. Advertisement discreetly manipulates the beliefs, morals, and values of our culture, and it does so in a way that most of the time we don’t even realize it’s happened. In order to reach our main goal of

Advertising in the modern day has developed alongside the advent of business ethics as a scholarly and academic practice. As the ethical environment of business has seen a surge in study and discipline, advertising has undergone even more intense scrutiny and discussion. Though advertising and criticism is no new marriage as it has been under the microscope since its takeoff in the 1930s, developments in both approach by advertisers and its critiques has lead to an even heavier discussion than before. The focal point of this critique revolves around the notion of consumer sovereignty and how it theoretically has been altered by the ad. The aim of this paper is to address this very subject and

Kilbourne demonstrates three major main criticisms of advertising. First, advertising objectifies people and objects for the purpose of sales. This critique promotes products as more important than people and exploits human deeds and desires. Kilbourne offers ample evidence to support her first criticism of advertising. For example, Kilbourne examines advertisement such as the Thule car-rack - which humorously places more value on sports equipment been a child's life - is evidence of the trend that advertising is “objectif[ing] people…trivializ[ing and exploiting] our most heartfelt moments and relationships. Every emotion [,person, animal, and natural phenomenon] is used to sell us something” (Kilbourne, 2006, 369). Second - according to Kilbourne - advertising promotes and perpetuates the unnatural passion for products rather than personal relationship. “Advertising corrupts relationships and then offers us products, both as solace and as substitutes for the intimate human connection we all long for and need” (Kilbourne, 2006, 370). Within this concept, advertising also commits ‘cultural rape’ by manipulating sacred symbols for their utilization as emotional leverage in advertising. Third, advertisements damage the personality and structure of culture. For example the Giwch’in tribe’s traditional culture was almost erased by the introduction of advertising through television. “As multinational chains replace local character, we end up in a world in which everyone is Gapped and Starbucked…[Thus] rampant commercialism undermines our physical and psychological health, our environments and our civic life, and creates a toxic society” (Kilbourne, 2006, 371), which robs individuals of cultural and personal diversity. Based on the evidence presented by Kilbourne, I strongly agree with all three of these

Advertising and Societies: Global Issues. New York, NY: Peter Land, Inc., 2003. Rpt. In Advertising. Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web 30 July 2015

Advertisements are everywhere and they can easily be seen if one just takes the time to open their eyes. However, one of the more prominent things that advertising does is influence their audience’s decisions, and these decisions can vary based on where the audience consumes it or even the way in which their community views it as well. The ways in which one experiences advertising can contribute to how they choose to consume and this can affect their consumer habits as well. Not only that, but advertising and popular culture can influence the views on style and gender roles, especially in males. Also, the way that social class can change when immigrating from one country to another can lead the way to new ideas of what one should strive for in society as well. That being said, in relation to the interview that was conducted, advertisements and media are definitely a major influence in how one sees the world, and depending on where you grow up and are raised, your views on society and advertising can change dramatically.

Each day we are bombarded with advertisements from a plethora of corporations in every waking moment of our lives. Advertising agencies have become so advanced at what they do, that often times we may not even realize we are being advertised a product. This raises an interesting ethical dilemma over a certain type of advertising: persuasive advertising. Philosophers, economists, and business professionals have debated over whether or not persuasive advertising is an immoral violation of the autonomy of consumers. While not all forms of advertising are in and of themselves certainly immoral, persuasive advertising is particularly reprehensible due to the fact that not only does it manipulate our unconscious desires of which we are completely unaware in order to sell a product, but it also routinely leads us to act against our own best interest, thus overriding our autonomy.

Advertising has been defined as the most powerful, persuasive, and manipulative tool that firms have to control consumers all over the world. It is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Its impacts created on the society throughout the years has been amazing, especially in this technology age. Influencing people’s habits, creating false needs, distorting the values and priorities of our society with sexism and feminism, advertising has become a poison snake ready to hunt his prey. However, on the other hand, advertising has had a positive effect as a help of the economy and society.

Advertising is a profession that reflects and molds cultural values and standards in more ways than we may think. Because of advertising’s ability to affect the way people view themselves in the world that surrounds them, it is one of the business functions that receives the most ethical scrutiny. Advertising messages create a lot of debatable ethical issues because the public believes that advertisements affect the way people see themselves and can crucially affect their actions. In 2011, the Journal of Business Ethics summarized reasons why people complain about advertising. The reasons included teaching the idea that happiness comes from possessing valuable things, creating false values in society, causing individuals to be more easily persuaded by distracting them through entertainment and by the use of puffery or exaggerations to make their products appear better than they are. Another reason people complained about advertising was the fact that it is too preoccupied with exploiting sexuality and the human body to persuade people.

Advertising has always been an important part of our society. The history of advertising can be traced to pre-modern history when it served an important purpose by allowing sellers to effectively compete with other merchants for the attention of clients in Ancient Egypt. From 1704 when the first newspaper advertisement was announced, it gradually grows into a major force in American society based primarily on newspapers and magazines (Ad Age Advertising Century, 1999). It not only helps to raise the target demographics’ awareness of issues, but also educate consumers with the benefits of the product. However, advertising cannot target a particular person before the emerging of World Wide Web.

Today advertisements are criticised for their portrayal of gender, sexuality, minorities and subaltern classes. Media Ethics and Social Responsibility focus on these areas and say why it is happening. Advertisements of sanitary napkins, cosmetics, kitchen appliances and other such products women are the main highlight. In most of the ads they are portrayed in a stereotypical manner. Ads are now profit oriented.

Serving the public is the best thing in the world . For the sake of serving people Advertising, public relations, marketing communications, news, and editorial all share a common objective of truth and high ethical standards. Research suggest that consumers do believe in honest and ethical advertising. Now the industry has started growing and they have committed to highest standards of truth and accuracy. Professionals have to build and maintain consumer trust so that they can

Advertising is a persuasive communication attempt to change or reinforce one’s prior attitude that is predictable of future behavior. We are not born with the attitudes for which we hold toward various things in our environment. Instead, we learn our feelings of favorability or unfavorability through information about the object through advertising or direct experience with the object, or some combination of the two. Furthermore, the main aim of advertising is to ‘persuade’ to consumer in order to generate new markets for production.

To understand what criteria is used to distinguished ethical advertising from unethical advertising, we must first define ethical as a term. Ethics is “the basic concepts and fundamental principles of decent human conduct.” (Ethics, n.d.) The act of taking an ethical approach to advertising is more of a corporate philosophy rather than a marketing strategy. “It seeks to promote honesty, fairness, and responsibility in all advertising. Ethics is a notoriously difficult subject because everyone has subjective judgments about what is “right” and what is “wrong.” For this reason, ethical marketing is not a hard and fast list of rules, but a general set of guidelines to assist companies as they evaluate new marketing strategies.” (Ethical Marketing, n.d.)

Advertising and promotion, ethical pitfall: Issues over truth and honesty. Issues with violence, sex and profanity. Taste and controversy and negative advertising