Ethical Problems in Advertising

Advertising persuades our lives. It is impossible to read a newspaper or magazine, watch a television show or travel the streets of our cities without being bombarded by commercial messages. Although some ads may be irritating or offensive, the better efforts of Madison Avenue provide a certain amount of entertainment. We also derive benefit fron information about products and from the boost that advertising gives to the economy as a whole. On the other side of the fence, companies with products or services to sell regard advertising as a valuable, indeed indispensable marketing tool. Approximately 2 percent of the gross national product is currently devoted to advertising. So wether we like it or not, advertising is a large and essential part of the American way of doing business.

A typical definition of advertising, from a marketing textbook, is that it is " a paid nonpersonal communication about an organisation and its products that is transmitted to a target audience through a mass medium." So defined, advertising is onlyone kind of promotional activity. The others are publicity( press releases andother publicrelations efforts that do not involve the purchase of air time or spacein the mass media), sales promotion ( contests, coupons,free samples, and so on, which are not strictly speaking., forms of communication), and pesonal selling by shop clerks and telephone solicitors ( which , of course, is not interpersonal and also does not take place through a mass medium). Although most advertising is for a product or a service, some of it is devoted to enhancing the image of a corporation or advancing some issue or cause. thus, a distinction is commonly made between the productadvertising on the one hand and corporate or advocacy advertising on the other"

Advertising is widely criticised. Exaggerated claims and outright falsehoods are the most obvious targets for compaints, followed closely by the lack of taste, irritating repetation, and offensive character of many ads. More recently, questions have beeb raised about the morality of soecific kinds of advertising, sucha s advertising for alcohol and tobacco products and ads aimed at children. Particular ads are also faulted for their use of excessive sexor violence or for presenting negative stereotypes of certain groups. Other critics complain about the role advertising playsn creating aulture of consumerism. Advertising encourages people notonly to buy more but also to believe that their most basic needs and desires can be satisfied by products. Finaly, there is great concrn about the potential of advertising for behavior control.