The Ethics Of The Advertising Industry

(Twitchell, p. 178) As if this tidbit of information was not enough to raise awareness of the bad side effects that come along with social media and advertising, a study was conducted recently to determine just how important advertisers found ethics to be; the results were shocking. It turns out that among twenty-nine different advertising agencies, two general groups were able to be formed: “those who feel ethics is largely irrelevant to advertising, and those who ‘typically recognized moral issues and talked about them inside the agency with their coworkers and outside the agency with their clients and potential clients.’” (Drumright and Murphy, 2009) Unfortunately, the majority of the agencies who were interviewed fell into the category of believing that ethics is largely irrelevant to advertising. Since ethics turn out to be of so little concern in the advertising industry, and since advertisements clutter social media, it is fair to conclude that said industries are not in existence to look out for consumers, but rather to provide a platform for sales and increased revenue.

Ethics are values and principles that individuals use to govern his decisions and activities. Ethics are about moral judgment of an individual about right and wrong. In an organization, code of ethics refers to set of guiding principles and organizations use these principles in their policies, programs, and decisions for business. Within organizations, decisions are taken by groups or individuals and these decisions are influenced by the culture of the company. Decision making and relevance of ethics may also differ for nonprofit and for profit organizations. In contemporary business environment, organizations must have a clear ethical policy and implement it in proper manner. There are many social, legal and economic outcomes that company has to face in case of any ethical dilemma, so there must be a smart strategy to deal with ethical dilemmas. In this paper, we will address the ethics for nonprofit and profits organizations, ethical dilemmas being faced or faced by each of these companies and the outcomes of these ethical dilemmas. Critique of actions of each of these companies will be provided from the point of view of applicable philosophical theories of organizational ethics.

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.

Ethics is the application of one’s personal beliefs and the impact on how a person makes decisions regarding the relationships involving a company. The most common agents that involve a person’s decisions are owners, employees, customers, clients,

In Ricardo Bilton’s article “What Would Kant Do? Ad Blocking is a Problem, but It’s Ethical,” Bilton shows an ethical dilemma between publishers and internet users, about ad blocking. Publishers are like to withdraw the ethical argument when discussing the damages of ad blocking, but they still connect business with ad tech companies and ad networks. And internet users are want to clean out all advertisings while they reading a website and watching a video. Although publishers make how many businesses with other companies, users are still like to install an ad blocker because it helps reader operating conveniently, watching a video smoothly, and clean all the “stuff” in websites.

One might ask, what makes an action ethical? Why some people think that product placement in movies is a considerably ethical phenomena, while others find it unethical and unacceptable. According to Tsalikis & Fritzsche, (1989, p, 696), ethics is an inquiry into the nature and grounds of morality where morality means moral judgments, standards, and rules of conduct (Tsalikis, Fritzsche, 1989, p, 696). In other words, ethics, which is a discipline that deals with what true and false is, is defined as a system of determined theory or moral values (Shea, 1988). Likewise an ethical evaluation is based on moral philosophy (Reidenbach & Robin, 1990). Therefore, an ethical decision depends on individual moral values, and the judgment of business activity is influenced by his/her moral philosophy (Wang, 2012).

In general, we learned in the reading, that Kant’s defined categorical imperative,” would provide a rational basis for making ethical decisions without relying on another commandment or directive “(Neher, W. W. Sandin, P.J., 2007, p. 39). Furthermore, he believes that a person would have the ability to determine the ethical thing to do in every situation based on their own reasons with no exceptions and these reasons can be applied to contemporary advertising media. Therefore, his main focus point of his theory was the “golden rule”, do unto other people that you would them do unto you because it’s a person duty, which falls under the deontological system“ (Excelsior College, n.d., p. 5). Furthermore, Kant’s stated that,” regardless of the

This approach seeks to achieve the best consequences for the majority whilst harming others in the process. Notwithstanding that, the selling of customer data has become a common practice in business this is not what is in question. This principle is only concerned with the action taken by this particular company. Does the selling of this company’s customer data benefit many people? It will benefit other companies who purchase the data once mined to achieve an understanding of possible spending behaviors or brand preferences and the like. Nevertheless, the action does not benefit society as a whole. It solely benefits a segment of society. However, using this ethical model, we must review additional principles to understand whether the decision is ethical.

Companies involved in targeted advertising also have to deal with ethical issues. According to a study conducted by JL Davis on decision making in advertising, most of advertising experts were influenced only by legal actions, while ethics contributed as the minor factor. Based on the study of Wallace Snyder, advertising ethics, especially targeted advertising, is often given little attention until the company is compelled to make a response when challenged by the law (Snyder 2008). Some consumers haven’t been aware of that their privacy are stolen. Even if consumers were aware of online

From minuscule mom-and-pop shop advertisements in the local newspapers to the  developing multi-billion dollar industry, advertisements have infiltrated every aspect of the current world. Whether it be in the grocery store or on social media, there is no escaping the constant bombardment of advertisements. It becomes a difficult task to ignore. Because there are little to no restrictions on the content used in advertisements, advertising companies have the ability to release controversial material whenever they please. The popularity of these types of advertisements depend solely on the reaction from the general public. The disputable material released in advertisements are detrimental to consumers personal beliefs and emotions.

Now the wind of technological advancement is blowing all around the glob. Our life become so much easy and comfortable. For the sake of explosion of new technology, media, and new opportunities is transforming the marketing and advertising landscape and revolutionizing the way the industry conducts business. The only fact is the transparency that is needed. For the sake of motivating advertising, public relations, and marketing communications professionals to practice the highest personal ethics in the creation and distribution of commercial information to consumers the institute for advertising (IAE) was created.

The danger focuses that can go about as a boundary to the moral part of marketing incorporate "statistical surveying", "market group of onlookers", and "deliberate methodology". Issues of assurance and stereotyping are the normal advocates to the undesirable and wiped out results that raise moral concern (Newton, Newton, Turk, and Ewing, 2013, pp.1421). Similarly, reception of particular advertising that have the expectation to minimize the interest of undesirable business sector fragment is another contributing variable. For instance, issues of promoting by any organization, if have wrong demeanors towards gays, minority and the particular ethnic gathering is secured inside this extension. Particularly in Australia, government associations

Businesses have been relatively passive in investigate their in marketing ethics and are still operating according to traditional business models and process that do not reflect consumer interests and ethical implications of their activity often continue afterthought and are yet to be thoroughly incorporated into management decision-making. The contingency framework can accelerate this pre-emptive approach to ethical decision-making. To embed ethics into firms planning and strategy formulation process , marketers should learn from consumers ethical evaluation of their marketing techniques (Smith and Cooper-Martin 1997). An “ethical execution of the marketing program. In addition to financial , market, and competitive objectives, marketers should include consumer concerns and ethical integrity as important criteria for management decision making . Furthermore, ethics must be matched throughout the marketing planning process from product development, market selection , advertising and promotion execution.

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

The primary purpose of the Code is to regulate the ethical rules applicable to commercial advertising, that is to say, all activities designed to stimulate the consumption of products and services and promote institutions, concepts or ideas. Due sense of social responsibility, commercial principles of fair competition, conformity to the purposes of national economic, educational and cultural development, are some examples of the main principles established in the Code. The ethical behavior standards set forth therein shall be observed by all professionals involved in advertising activities, including advertisers, advertising agencies, media, broadcasters, journalists and all other communication