The Ethics of Advertising: Do Advertisers Go Too Far?

In today’s society, no matter where you are, there is always a good chance that you have seen an advertisement. These little creatures are everywhere. You may see them when you are reading a magazine, watching TV, or surfing the internet. We have become so used to them. Advertisements are good at making us stop what we are doing and giving them our full attention. What is an advertisement? An advertisement is an announcement made to the public. In Jib Fowles’ article, “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals,” he is informing us that companies are spending millions of dollars on advertisements to grab our attention in order to manipulate us into spending or thinking of spending our hard-earned money on their product. Even though a lot of people do not want to believe that a paper that is eight times eleven with an image and no more than five words is manipulative because we want to think that we are not that easy to trick. Nike created an advertisement for one of

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

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.

As a society, we are seduced by the power of advertisements. An advertisement sells more than a product; it sells images, values, concepts of love and sexuality and most importantly normalcy. It conceptualises the world and our role within it.

According to Lipovetsky, “advertising does not aim to reform people and mores; in reality, it takes people as they are, attempting only to stimulate a pre-existing desire to consume.” (164) The influences of advertising do not eliminate expression; it prevents uniformity in preferences by emphasizing the principle of individuality and de-standardization.

In today 's society, it is nearly impossible to go anywhere without the potential of seeing advertisements. “It is is the corners of elevators, as you play golf, and there are ads in the bottom of the cups. We see it as we look to the sky and see skywriting, or as a bus passes by, and there is an ad scrawled across the side. Advertising is everywhere and suffocating us” (Goodman, 2004). Despite the bombardment of advertisements we face on a daily basis, as consumers, we have become progressively proficient in avoidance of these marketing ploys. Particularly in relation to television programming, viewer attention has declined as the ability to skip over commercials through DVR has become available. Unfortunately, this poses an issue for marketing executives as commercial programming, and product placement are an essential tool in cultivating a consumer base. Studies found that “80% of our life is emotion and 20% thought. Since then, we have seen a shift in how the market operates to cater towards how the consumers feel rather than how they think. How we think is on the outside, but how we feel is at our core which assists in cultivating a new customer base” (2004). In recent years, these statistics have become a staple in redesigning how individuals experience advertisements. Using these, we continue to promote a culture of materialism in correlation to satisfaction and overall happiness achieved through the

Advertisements are all around us, whether we are conscious of it or not, they have blurred the line between reality and fantasy. The commercial industry pries on our brains, using the unconscious to develop impeccable marketing ideas. In general, ads have both negative and positive impact on humans. With the correct graphics, language, sounds, and target audience, almost anything can be made persuasive enough for our minds to crave it.

Do you really know what’s in that can of Coca Cola you are giving to your child? In a six hundred milliliters bottle contains high fructose corn syrup, fifteen teaspoons of added sugar, and no kola nut extra contrary to what is implied by the “Cola” name. Advertisers wouldn 't tell you that even if they wanted to. Every day during daily activities like walking, driving or even relaxing at home people are bombarded by images of perfect bodies, beautiful hair, and having parties with lots of friends, everyone looks so happy. These ideas and images are embedded in our minds. Advertisements select audience openly and subjectively to target us with their product. They allude to the fact that in order to be like those people in this advertisements you must use their product. This approach is not new nor is it unique, but never has it been as widely used as it is today. They give us motivation to buy a product: Your children will love you more if you buy them this or drink coca cola then your life will be filled with happiness. Every one of our emotions is played on so that we will feel obligated to buy a product. Advertisements affect our subconscious by using different techniques and persuasion through weasel words, bandwagon and social media to offer us not just a product, but a lifestyle.

However, this does not prevent some companies and parties to advertise their products in one or more of those ways. There is always of question of how advertising manipulates people’s desires and the answer lies within the collocation of language and audio-visual impulses. A human brain can cognitively comprehend what is uttered through language. The language in its turn can include audiovisual imagery, which is the main thing that manipulates people into buying products. Words in advertising are carefully selected because the advertisers do not impose their advertisements on the potential customers as they might react to its message in a negative way. Advertisers use something called illocution, the main objective of which is to persuade the consumer in such a way that they eventually buy their product. The illocutionary acts can be of the following types: assertives, commissives, directives, expressives and many others. As Van Dijk (2001: 352) states advertisers control the context first and decide what is going to be launched and advertised, when, how and to whom. The following paragraph will reveal various, most important mechanisms which advertisers use to manipulate by means of persuasion.

Another advantage of the elusive appeal of native ads is the ability to subliminally present brands to increase engagement and sales for their products and services without annoying potential consumers. Subliminal messaging has been known as an effective method of influencing behavior. Although subliminal messaging was banned in the 1950’s, this provides a loophole for brands to influence behavior while flying under the radar of government regulation.

​The meaning of advertising is "the act or practice of calling public attention to one's product, service, need, etc"(cited in Collins English Dictionary). It has various forms such as televisions, newspapers, magazines, radios, mobiles, books, mailboxes, and through the networks. Advertising has become a part of our daily lives, and it affects our way of life because advertisements are everywhere: in the streets, supermarkets, shops and malls. In fact, advertising is one of the most influential marketing methods on consumers in the commercial field. It is also an important source of information before buying any product. However, advertising has become a way for traders to manipulate the consumers, and that has a lot of risks on the individual and the community. Advertising industry should grow for the need of informing the consumers about the products not to deceive then by marketing tricks.  Nowadays, advertising targets consumers to manipulate them more than informing them with the needed facts about what they buy because it is achieved by marketing fallacies and tricks and it causes many troubles in the community.

One of the most controversial areas of marketing has long been that of advertising to children. Today, advertisers are focusing their ads at younger and younger audiences, many of whom are still in diapers. The reason that adverters are targeting younger and younger children is that they are trying to establish “brand-name preference” at as early of an age as possible. (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2006)

If you live in the city, you are likely to see up to 5,000 advertisements a day. In fact, it is beneficial to our society as well as it is for our economy. Advertisement is a form of social communication that provides persuasive information about a product or service. It can be found all over the mass media. It can be heard on the radio or television and seen on billboards, magazines and internet. It is used to bring awareness, influence response, and ultimately, increase financial profit. Advertisement is used to promote sales by marketing new products or services.

Advertising is an mechanism that businesses use to reveal themselves to consumers and get their attention. Advertisements are seen in newspapers, television commercials, magazines, on the radio, and on billboards. There are so many advertisements that we see in a day that we don’t even notice. Kilbourne states, “The average American is exposed to at least three thousand ads everyday and will spend three years of his or her life watching television commercials” (RPC 90). We live in a world full of technology which is used to create these ads and display them. Advertisers also use this technology to create different characters or slogans to make a product they are selling more memorable. While most people find advertisements to be informative and helpful, there may be some techniques and hidden messages that we, the consumers, do not take into consideration when being persuaded into buying a product that is being advertised.