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Ethics in Advertising

Ethics in advertising means a set of principles that govern communication between sellers and buyers. While advertising has benefits, some practices do not align with ethical norms. An ethical ad does not lie or make false claims, and stays within decency standards. However, advertisers sometimes exaggerate claims or benefits to promote products. What is considered ethical also depends on beliefs and intentions. Generally, large companies avoid lies but may not reveal whole truths. Certain industries like alcohol and cigarettes should avoid advertising due to health risks. Advertisers should self-regulate by creating codes, tracking activities, and being transparent.

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NITHYA MUKTHA S
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41 views19 pages

Ethics in Advertising

Ethics in advertising means a set of principles that govern communication between sellers and buyers. While advertising has benefits, some practices do not align with ethical norms. An ethical ad does not lie or make false claims, and stays within decency standards. However, advertisers sometimes exaggerate claims or benefits to promote products. What is considered ethical also depends on beliefs and intentions. Generally, large companies avoid lies but may not reveal whole truths. Certain industries like alcohol and cigarettes should avoid advertising due to health risks. Advertisers should self-regulate by creating codes, tracking activities, and being transparent.

Uploaded by

NITHYA MUKTHA S
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Ethics in Advertising

 Ethics means a set of moral principles which govern a person’s


behaviour or how the activity is conducted. And advertising
means a mode of communication between a seller and a buyer.
 Thus ethics in advertising means a set of well-defined principles
which govern the ways of communication taking place between
the seller and the buyer.
 Ethics is the most important feature of the advertising industry.
Though there are many benefits of advertising but then there are
some points which don’t match the ethical norms of advertising.
 An ethical ad is the one which doesn’t lie, doesn’t make
fake or false claims and is in the limit of decency
Nowadays, ads are more exaggerated and a lot of puffing is
used. It seems like the advertisers lack knowledge of ethical
norms and principles. They just don’t understand and are
unable to decide what is correct and what is wrong.

The main area of interest for advertisers is to increase their


sales, gain more and more customers, and increase the
demand for the product by presenting a well decorated,
puffed and colourful ad.
They claim that their product is the best, having unique
qualities than the competitors, more cost effective, and
more beneficial. But most of these ads are found to be
false, misleading customers and unethical.

The best example of these types of ads is the one which


shows evening snacks for the kids, they use colouring and
gluing to make the product look glossy and attractive to the
consumers who are watching the ads on television and
convince them to buy the product without giving a second
thought.
 Ethics in Advertising is directly related to the purpose of
advertising and the nature of advertising.
 Sometimes exaggerating the ad becomes necessary to prove the
benefit of the product.
 For e.g. a sanitary napkin ad which shows that when the napkin
was dropped in a river by some girls, the napkin soaked whole
water of the river.
 Thus, the purpose of advertising was only to inform women about
the product quality.
 Obviously, every woman knows that this cannot practically
happen but the ad was accepted.
 This doesn’t show that the ad was unethical.
 Ethics also depends on what we believe.
 If the advertisers make the ads on the belief that the
customers will understand, persuade them to think, and
then act on their ads, then this will lead to positive results
and the ad may not be called unethical.
 But at the same time, if advertisers believe that they can
fool their customers by showing any impractical things like
just clicking fingers will make your home or office fully
furnished or just buying a lottery ticket will make you a
millionaire, then this is not going to work out for them
and will be called as unethical.
 Generally, big companies never lie as they have to
prove their points to various ad regulating bodies.
Truth is always said but not completely.
 Sometimes it’s better not to reveal the whole truth
in the ad but at times truth has to be shown for
betterment.
 Pharmaceutical Advertising - they help creating
awareness, but one catchy point here is that the
advertisers show what the medicine can cure but
never talk about the side effects of that same thing
or the risks involved in intake of it.
Children - children are the major sellers of the ads
and the product.
 They have the power to convince the buyers.
 But when advertisers are using children in their ad,
they should remember not to show them alone doing
their work on their own like brushing teeth, playing
with toys, or infants holding their own milk bottles as
everyone knows that no one will leave their kids
unattended while doing all these activities.
 So showing parents also involved in all activities or
things being advertised will be more logical.
Alcohol - till today, there hasn’t come any liquor ad which shows
anyone drinking the original liquor. They use mineral water and soda
in their advertisements with their brand name. These types of ads
are called surrogate ads. These type of ads are totally unethical when
liquor ads are totally banned. Even if there are no advertisements for
alcohol, people will continue drinking.

Cigarettes and Tobacco - these products should be never


advertised as consumption of these things is directly and badly
responsible for cancer and other severe health issues. These as are
already banned in countries like India, Norway, Thailand, Finland and
Singapore.
 Ads for social causes - these types of ads are ethical and are accepted by the
people. But ads like condoms and contraceptive pills should be limited, as
these are sometimes unethical, and are more likely to lose morality and
decency at places where there is no educational knowledge about all these
products.
 Looking at all these above mentioned points, advertisers should start taking
responsibility of self-regulating their ads by:
 design self-regulatory codes in their companies including ethical norms, truth,
decency, and legal points
 Keep tracking the activities and remove ads which don’t fulfil the codes.
 Inform the consumers about the self-regulatory codes of the company
 Pay attention on the complaints coming from consumers about the product
ads.
 Maintain transparency throughout the company and system.

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