ETHICS AND ADVERTISING
Mass media in contemporary capitalistic
societies – other than film, much cable television, and some magazines – are
largely supported by commercial advertising. This is so common and so well
accepted that the few exceptions, such as consumer report magazine, are
noteworthy. Even public broadcasting, with its commercial underwriting and
on-air “begathons”, often seems similar to commercial stations and their paid
ads.
Advertising ethics have been a source of
controversy almost since advertising began. Some see the term as an oxymoron.
Others argue strongly that advertising practitioners should have no problems
adhering to “appropriate” ethical standards.
The key point in this discussion is that
advertising’s purposes and goals differ greatly from those of the parts of the
media that aim to present news and information, or offer entertainment, to the
public. Answers to the question of whether advertising media are operating
ethically must be sought within the context of what advertising intends to do
and the role it plays un the American media system (and, along with the media,
the advertisers, and the consuming public, in the capitalist economy more
generally). Advertising does differ from both the news and the entertainment
media, and its ethics must be evaluated with those differences in mind.
That doesn’t mean that advertising
shouldn’t be socially responsible in the messages it brings to the public. But
definitions of that term can vary widely, depending on one’s perspective. There
is also a fine line between standards of advertising acceptability and outright
censorship. Keep in mind, too, that although we are referring here mainly to
product advertising, the advertising of
ideas, or of political candidates, is an area that also raises many
important ethical issues. So does the question of advertising products by
making sure they’ll be visible in films or television programs, an issue discussed
briefly in chapter 14-D.
In the discussion that follows, carol
reuss and david Gordon agree that there are some ethical standards that
certainly should apply to advertising. But they disagree as to what those
standards should be. Gordon argues that truth is not an appropriate ethical
norm to apply to advertising, and reuss maintains that honesty and a lack of
deception or duplicity should be important ethical concerns for advertisers.
GORDON : Everyone understands that the
function of advertising is to create images that sell products and services,
and there is therefore no need for it to adhere to truth as an ethical
standard.
Arguing that advertising is creative
rather than factual, and persuasive more than informative, does not
automatically mean it should have absolutely no concerns with ethics. Rather,
this ought to lead one to consider carefully which ethical standards should
apply to advertising and how any such standards should differ from the ones
applied to the news, information, and entertainment media.
This is especially important for
advertising students to ponder because mass communication education too often
fails to differentiate among its various subfields. Thus, when the talk turns
to ethics, that discussion often is centered on what the standards should be
for the news media – if for no other reason than that we are all news media
consumers – with too little attention paid to the other parts of the
wide-ranging field of mass communication.
Dealing with this issue more generally
will also lead to a careful consideration of what ethical standards should not
apply to advertising communication. I believe that chief among such
inapplicable standards is “Truth” – an elusive enough concept when applied to
the news media, but one that is both irrelevant and nearly impossible to define
when applied to advertising.
Supreme court justices, among others,
have written that although the truth of factual statement may be ascertained,
one can not prove the “truth” of an opinion. The same might be said for
persuasive communication such as advertising, where the validity of many claims
is subject to opinion rather than to factual proof. The federal trade
commission (FTC) has had a great deal to say about outright deception in ads.
That is a legal issues as well as an ethical one, and we’ll proceed here on the
assumption that advertisement must adhere to the requirement not to make false
statements in an effort to deceive, for legal if not for ethical reason.
Beyond that minimum requirement,
however, there is no need for ads to be “truthful” in the same sense that the
news must be accurate or truthful. News reporters are supposed to provide a
fair, accurate, and complete account in the stories they present. Advertising
practitioners have a responsibility to do the best job they can to persuade
potential customers of the value of a product (or an idea) while avoiding the
kind of deception the FTC has banned. By definition, such persuasion requires
that the advertising communicator emphasize the strong or appealing points of
the product and omit the weaknesses. A full, fair, balanced picture is not what
is intended.
I believe that the public has a
responsibility to be aware of this, to understand the conventions of
advertising, and to use advertising, as it is
intended – as attempts at persuasion that also can and do provide useful
information. To help produce this increased public awareness and understanding,
the advertising profession might well commit itself to do a better job of
explaining to the public just how it work and what might fairly be expected –
from it. ( Such consumer education is
also very much needed in regard to the news media, but that’s a different argument,
which I set forth in chapter 11).
The early 1990s use of greater realism
in television advertising spots, particularly in regard to the people who
appear in those spots, illustrates strikingly that ads and advertisers can’t be
held to the same standards of truth as exist for news people. A late 1993
article in the new York times noted that this “ so-called real people, school
of casting eschews the glamour and glitz of actors and models for the
genuineness and imperfections of ordinary consumers “ ( Elliot, 1993, p. D15).
This approach has its roots in the
desire to persuade more effectively, rather than in concerns about ethics. It
has to do with the ways in which the purveyors of the persuasive messages are
perceived, not with the truth or completeness of the message itself. And this
is appropriate for the advertising field. These documercials supposedly have a
more persuasive credibility, particularly among younger, more sales resistant
consumers. Such ads can then overcome the skepticism that so often results when
professionals deliver paid pitches (ibid).
This phenomenon may reinforce the
general notion that ethical practices and
procedures can also be good business. In advertising as in other parts
of the mass media word. But we must remember that the appeal of realism in TV
ads has bottom-line rather than ethical roots. Its goal of presenting a bit of
purity amid a world of puffery (ibid), is driven by marketing forces, and would
(and should) be abandoned if it proves ineffective. Here, also, it is the
public’s responsibility to provide the feedback that will determine whether
this realism content should continue in advertising. Indeed, it also falls to
the public to regulate advertising that goes beyond acceptable ethical limits
simply by conveying its displeasure to the sponsor or the ad agency involved (
directly, or through refusing to buy the product ).
AN ARGUMENT FOR APPLYING ETHICAL
ATANDARDS
Richard johannesen has made an
interesting argument for the application of “ ethical standards rooted in
truthfulness and rationality to advertising’s efforts to argue the quality of a
product. He suggests that the evidence and the reasoning supporting the claim
clear, accurate, relevant and sufficient in quantity, and that any emotional
appeals must be directly to the product being promoted (Johannesen, 1990, pp.
119-120).
But advertising, as he notes, is
inherently not necessarily an exercise in rational communication. Rather, it is
persuasive communication, and I’d suggest that it should be given free rein as
long as it remains within the legal boundaries regulating blatant deception.
Indeed, Johannesen himself raises some question about whether the truthfulness
/ rationality standards should still apply when advertising is aimed not at
product quality, but simply seeks to get the attention of the reader or viewer
in order to create awareness of the particular product (ibid., p. 120). This
distinction between emphasis on product quality and mere attention getting
efforts seems to lack a clear dividing line, and strikes me as somewhat
irrelevant when one considers the basic persuasive nature of advertising.
[A]dvertising is a form of commercial
poetry, and both advertisers and poets use “creative embellishment…”
Indeed, one observer argued more than
two decades ago that advertising is a form of commercial poetry, and both
advertisers and poets use creative embellishment – a content which cannot be
captured by literal description alone (Levitt, 1970, p. 86). Accepting this
approach would allow for some poetic license in the creation of advertising that
, nonetheless, remained ethical.
Advertising and public relations have
also been described as having the goal of creating metaphors that resonate in
the minds of the target publics : the good hands people, the friendly skies,
and so forth (Blewett, 1994, p. 42). Creating metaphors is clearly an approach
to which standards of truth can’t and shouldn’t be applied in the usual ways.
The commercial poetry approach goes
further, and sees advertisements as symbols of human aspirations that are not
the things, nor are they intended to be, nor are they accepted as such by the
public (Levitt, 1997, p. 90). If, indeed, this perception about the audience is
correct, there is clearly no need to hold advertising to the same standards of
truth and accuracy that are required for the news media. Alternatively,if the
audience does see ads as reality, the advertising industry – and perhaps
understand better the role, practices, and commercial poetry of advertising.
Sissela bok, though holding that truth
is clearly preferable to lies except under very special circumstances,
nonetheless suggests that it is better to focus on being truthful rather than
on always telling the exact truth (Bok, 1979). Applying this to advertising
could mean that literal truth is not required as long as outright deception is
avoided, and it would seem to sanction the poetry concept of advertising copy.
Some people have seen political or
ideological advertising as a special case, and therefore subject to a different
set of ethical (and legal) expectations. Ads extolling or attacking political
candidates serve a different purpose than do product ads, and may be more
important to society. Critics in recent decades have often lamented the
tendency of political ads to deal with images rather than substance, and at
least one TV station has tried a short0lived experiment in which it refused to
run political ads of less than five minutes. Although the goal of forcing
political candidates to deal with serious issues rather than stressing only
quick imagery and sound bites in their ads was a laudable one, opposition from
both politicians and the public doomed the experiment.
And that’s not necessarily bad.
Political ads should no more be subject to standards of truth or substance than
should the general rhetoric of political campaigns. It’s a nice goal in the
abstract, but it’s both difficult and dangerous to try to implement such a
goal.
Ads – perhaps especially political ads –
are aimed at persuading you. If they some-times stray from the truth, or
concentrate on image rather than substance, then the best remedy is neither
legal restrictions nor efforts to impose an ethical standard of truth. Rather,
the remedy lies in further comment and discussion, either by opposing
candidates or – as has been taking place increasingly in the 1990s – by news
media materials that discuss the truthfulness, content, validity, and perceived
effectiveness of political as well as product ads and to send its own
ballot-box signals about how effectively they persuade – a responsibility that
may weigh more heavily as political and other ads spread to the internet.
In considering ideological ads, we can
look at one of the most extreme cases imaginable in pondering whether such ads
should be held to some standard of truth. Ads denying the existence of the
holocaust surface in many college and university news-papers in the late 1980s
and into the 1990s. argument raged on every campus where this took place – and
usually in the surrounding community as well – as to whether such ads should be
accepted, or whether it was appropriate to reject them on the grounds that they
were attempting to perpetrate a monstrous lie.
Some school newspapers wound up running
these ads – often while attacking them editorially – and others refused them on
various grounds, often including the fact that they distorted or perverted
historical truths. Certainly, I have no sympathy whatever for the ideological
position taken in these ads, and would much prefer that they never appeared.
But I am uneasy with the position that they should be rejected because they
fail to adhere to a standard of truth. If that stance is taken, we are opening
ourselves up to an endless series of arguments as to just how truthful a
political or ideological ad must be in order to be permitted to see the light
of day. In these situations, as in so many others, I believe that we are better
off worrying less about the truthfulness of an ad, and concentrating instead on
making sure that those who disagree with the contents have an ample opportunity
to respond. More speech, rather than regulation of content ) including the
truth or falsity of the ad), seems to be a remedy far better suited to an open,
democratic society – and this should be true for ideology cal and commercial
ads as well as for other forms of communication in such a society.
ADS FOR HARMFUL PRODUCTS
Observers over the years have
articulated ethical concern about advertising for products that might be
harmful in some way to the user. Indeed, some legal restrictions on that score
are already in place, such as the prohibition of cigarette ads on television.
Advertising acceptability standards and practices of individual media – and
retail – outlets can also sharply curtail the freedom to advertise, quite aside
from any legal restrictions, and this opens up a different set of ethical
issues.
The question comes down to whether it is
ethical, in the name of ethical and social responsibility, to restrict or
prevent advertising about products that may legally be sold but that some
people regard as harmful to society or to potential user. Might it be better to
make additional information about these product available to the public so
people can make up their own mind? The late 1980s argument over whether radio
and TV stations should run condom advertising illustrates both the
acceptability issue, and the impact that increasing public acceptance can have
on such standards.
The acceptability problem is complicated
immeasurably by the commercial speech doctrine under which the supreme court
has excluded a considerable portion of advertising from first amendment
protection. In essence, what the court has done under this doctrine is to
equate the non protected parts of commercial communication with obscene communication,
in that neither category is protected by the first amendment. This seems to be
unfair, unrealistic, and unwise because most if not all advertising conveys at
least a kernel of potentially useful information ( the redeeming social value
of advertising, to carry the obscenity parallel
just a small step further ). Such restrictions also convey a very
paternalistic view of an audience that is deemed to be incapable of making its
own decisions or resisting advertising blandishments.
A much more pragmatic approach would
hold that if a product is legal, it should be advertisable. That would
appropriately shift the focus of any disagreements from the advertising sphere
to the question of whether harmful product should be made illegal. As is, the
opponents of particular product such as tobacco, alcohol, guns, and X-rated
movie don’t necessarily have to face up to the underling issue of whether the
use of that product should be allowed. Instead, they can shift the concern to
the backs of the mass media and their advertisers. In the hope that by
restricting or eliminating the ads, they can reduce product usage.
The 1990s flap over the apparently
successful use of the Joe Camel symbol by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. CO.
illustrates the problem well. The attempts to ban the Joe Camel character,
because of its appeal to children, raised both legal and ethical issues. As the
boston globe asked, “ Are we to tell advertising firms that they can do their
work as long as they are not too good or too successful ? “ the paper went on
to note that this 9 laudable ) attempt to protect children from being
influenced to start smoking conceivable could be extended to some unlikely
areas, such as banning the movie Casablanca.
As John Banville wroten in the New York
Review of Books, Humphrey Bogart, who died of throat cancer, was the
“emblematic smoker” of his day. “No doubt many an adolescent boy bought his
first pack of smokes after seeing a Bogart movie”. (Joe Camel’s Rights, 1994)
On balance, it seems to me, the issues
of advertising acceptability and the legality of ads for certain product pose
far more serious ethical concerns for the advertising field than does the issue
of adhering strictly to truth.
Another area where advertising should be
concerned about ethical standards has to do with its separation from the news
potions of print and broadcast journalism. This is an ethical problem that
applies as much to the news as to the business side of the enterprise. Although
there is no need for advertising content to adhere to journalistic standards of
truth, there is a clear need for news and information content to do so. The
advertising side of the operation should remain completely separate from the
news, and not try to water down or eliminate news content even if that material
might induce advertisers to pull their ads. Aside from the highly questionable
ethic of knuckling under, it often also isn’t good business because standing up
to advertiser pressures can pay major dividends in the form of credibility and
public trust and thereby product a stronger audience bse to sell to future
advertisers. “ Newspaper and television lore is burdened with examples of
managers who caved in “ to such pressures, but there are also examples where
principle won out and produced long-run benefits even if there were short-term
income losses (Fink, 1988,pp.128-129).
A related concern is the so-called
advertorial or infomercial, which should be clearly distinguished from news
copy in printed publications or on the air, as carol needed, in fairness to the
readers, viewers, or listeners. But once that is ensured, the content can
ethically be aimed at persuading the audience, without concern over news media
standards of truth, objectivity, or fairness.
ETHICAL FRAMEWORKS REGARDING ADVERTISING
Edmund lambeth has forth a five principles that he recommends as the basis
for news media ethics. One of those – humaneness – might be argued as a
principle that should also apply to advertising communication. That seems to
requirethat ads avoid exploitation, that they not degrade individuals or
groups, and, in general, “ do no direct, intentional harm to others” (Lamberth,
1992, p.30). But as Lambethpoints out, the idea of avoiding direct harm to
others is more of a universal humam ethical principle than one that applies
particularly to journalists or to advertisers. As for thr balance of the
humaneness principlr, if advertising does not adhere to it, that’s perhaps
unfortunate, but (possibly with the single exception of ads that exploit young
children) no more so- and no moer preventable – than such occurrences are in
the news and entertainment media.
It can be argued that it is up to
parents rather than the advertising industry to control what their children
watch. If, as Reuss says, children are in the “line of fire” of ads aimed at
different and more mature audiences, that’s unfortunate but it’s hardly the
fault of the advertisers. The sponsors, in fact, would unquestionably prefer
that their ads reach the target audiences they’re paying the media to reach,
rather than being seen by children and others who are not potential customers
for the advertised products or services.
Of Lambeth’s other four principles,
we’ve already mentioned the question of truth. The other three (freedom,
justice, and stewardship) don’t really seem directly applicable to advertising,
although REuss appears to favor considerable stewardship on the part of
advertisers. There are also a number of other ethical standards that don,t
apply here. For instance, Aristotle’s Golden Mean, by definition, is not going
to be useful concerning persuasive communication that is trying to achieve a
nonbalanced goal.
Given the role advertising plays in the
media and society as whole, a utilitarian argument for wide-open advertising
might be mounted. This argument would posit that both in economic terms and in
terms of helping people to fill their needs and gratify their desires, the
greatest good is achieved by giving considerable latitude to advertisements,
particularly if the public is knowledgeable about the conventions of
advertising. But this approach must also contend with the nagging question of
how one judges what advertising practices or restraints produce the greatest
good (or the most pleasure) for the largest portion of society, and that question
seemingly defies a conclusive rational answer and therefore weakens the
utilitarian approach to this topic.
Kantian absolutes seem inappropriate
formulations to apply to advertising concerns. Rawls’s concern for the most
vulnerable members of society appears to be a less applicable approach (again,
with the possible exception of ads aimed at young children, which he would
likely regard as inherently unfair) than the goal of educating the public to
understand advertising and to take it for what it really ia: an effort to make
them aware of products and services and to persuade them to buy.
The special case of television
advertising directed at young children is one where arguing the need for
ethical concerns may be valid. However, the Children’s Television Act of 1990
seems to have preempted the ethical perspective on this by establishing some
minimum legal requirements aimed at preventing advertisers from exploiting
young viewers. It therefore seems sensible to treat this area of concern similarly
to the way the FTC dealt legally with deception in advertising and just accept
those rules as given rather than arguing about their ethical dimensions.
The controversy over the appropriateness
of exposing school children to ads beamed into their classrooms over Channel
One raises spme of the same ethical (and economic) Questions. This venture,
launched in 1990 by Whittle Communications, may have reached as many as 40% of
American high school students before running into serious financial problems
originating largely in other parts of Whittle’s holdings and resulting in its
sale in 1994 (Stewart, 1994).
Channel one was criticized on the
grounds that the students were a captive audience and that it was unfair to
expose them to ads in a school setting. The counter-arguments were that the
12-minute news and informational program ( including 2 minutes of advertising )
on channel one provided more exposure to news
than the students would otherwise receive, and that channel one’s
donation of TV sets, VCRs, and satellite dishes to the school receiving its
broadcasts the opportunities for improve educational experiences for all their
students.
I’d suggest that for students living in
a society where advertising is so prominent, exposure to ads in a school
setting is not appreciably more of a problem than such exposure in the rest of
their lives. It has also been argued that channel one provides an excellent
opportunity for teachers to discuss with their students advertising’s role in
the economy and to help educate the students to have an increased understanding
of advertising. All in all, taking a utilitarian approach to this specific
problem, one might conclude that on balance, channel one produces greater
benefits for more people than does its absence.
The same can be said for the general
role played by advertising even if it is not held to ethical standards of
truth. One can certainly argue cogently, as Reuses does, that it is better for
the society as a whole if advertising adheres to certain overall ethical
standards concerned primarily with the welfare of society. One can even argue
for the benefits of advertising codes of ethics, bland and unenforceable as
they often are, or for the plausibility that
reuss supports.
Although I don’t disagree with these
positions in the abstract, I much prefer to let the audience determine wheter
ads are plausible. I find it totally unrealistic to think about requiring ( or
even advocating ) an ethical stance that focuses on truth as long as advertising
serves the purposes it does in our society – namely, as a provider of important
commercial information and as the economic engine that drives (or “drive$’) the
media. That engine must be free to attempt to persuade and to serve the needs
of the clients who are paying for that persuasion, subject to the basic legal
standards acknowledged previously.
Any other approsch runs the risk of
making advertising less effective in the name of imposing such ethical
standards as plausibility or literal truthfulness. Such results would diminish
not only the effectiveness of the advertising-driven economy but also the
economic viability and the independence of the American mass media.
Advertisning, after all, is the major alternative to having the media financed
(and controlled) by the government, or to placing the entire burden of paying
for the median on the shoulders of the consumers. Although advertising should
arguably not be beyond the reach of some ethical principles, it certainly
should not be saddled with such excess ethical baggage as concerns for truth,
which are really not relevant to its function in society.
REUSS: Advertising, no less than news or
public relations, should be held to standards of honesty and other ethical
principles.
With few exceptions, mass media in
capitalistic societies are entwined with advertising – paid message that
promote products, services, and causes. Among the notable exceptions are the
renewed Ms. Magazine and public broadcasting, both of which actively solicit
individuals and organization for sponsorships. The new York tabloid PM was
founded as an advertising free newspaper in 1940, but changed that policy in
1946.
There are many strong arguments for
advertising in mass media. At the top of the list is the fact that advertisers
pay more than $125 billion a year for media time and space. Those dollars
support most broadcasting and augment the newsstand and subscription dollars
that print readers pay. Until audiences are willing to pay the total costs of
the media they use, advertising will remain the fiscal foundation for U.S. mass
media, even those that aggressively and critically cover advertisers and
advertising.
Not everyone agrees that advertising is
useful to society. Critics such as former ad man jerry Mander, who proposes
that advertising be eliminated, often cite the negative aspects of advertising.
They overlook the positive affects of advertising, especially the fact that
advertising dollars support the mass media. Mander’s four arguments for the elimination
of advertising makes a direct attack :
All
advertising is a gross invasion of privacy
All
advertising is political propaganda representing the rich to the detriment of
everyone else.
Advertising
is dependent upon economic growth, which further concentrates wealth and power
while destroying the planet.
All
advertising encourages the centralization of feeling, destroy diversity of
experience, and corrupts human interaction (1993, p. 125)
Other critics of advertising, before and
after Mander. Are a shade more accepting. Typically, they recognize that people
need some advertising – such as information about good books and book stores,
job openings and such necessities as health and plumbing services.
Directly opposite mander’s broad attack
against advertising is the libertarian view that there should be no limits on
advertising. That view pushes the concept of caveat emptor – let the buyer
beware – to an untenable extreme. It should not be an excuse for advertiser
irresponsibility, nor should it excuse advertisers, the mass media, and the
public from responsibilities related to advertising. If advertisers and the
mass media that accept advertising cannot be socially responsible, individuals,
groups, and even government should be prepared to intervene.
I agree with david Gordon that people
have to learn how to interpret advertising, but I do not agree that the public
bears all responsibility for interpreting the appropriateness, honesty, and
accuracy of advertisements. The advertising industry should be the first
guardian against the pitfalls of the three Ds: dishonesty, deception, and
duplicity.
Theadvertising industry should be the
first guardian against the pitfalls of the three Ds: dishonesty; deception, and
duplicity.
When we look the ethics of advertising
from two perspectives, the advertisers and the mass media’s, by implication we
include a third – audiences, both targeted audiences and all others who might
be affected by advertising. The latter might include underage teens who are
influenced by advertisements for alcoholic products and find ways to get them,
or people of any age who are frustrated by the desire for products they cannot
possibly afford. Advertisers, the media, and the public share responsibilities
for all of these people.
DISHONESTY, DECEPTION, AND DUPLICITY IN
ADS
Advertisements are created for one
purpose : to persuade audiences to do something – to buy a product, for
example, or to like or dislike a person or concept or to support a cause. The
appeals vary, and so do media, ad sizes, designs, words, and illustrations, as
well as the opportunities for dishonesty, deception, and duplicity. For
example, I believe that advertisements targeted to students and offering “ term
paper services “ are dishonest. The purpose of assigning term ppers and similar
report is to get students involved in the research and writing process. This is
subverted when students buy papers and turn them in as their own work. Students
who succumb to buying the advertised products are as dishonest as the service
offered – and do not receive the education for which they are paying tuition.
Gullible people can be caught with other
kinds of dishonest advertisements. Ads that offer to help a person who has been
a poor credit risk get a credit card, or buy “ government surplus “ property,
or get a government job are often scams. They usually require either a deposit
or credit card payment in advance. There is no guarantee that the buyer will
get the help or the product offered or that the credit card information will
not be misused. These ads capitalize on half-truths, at best. People who have
been cheated that amount they have lost is not worth the cost of pursuing the
advertisers.
Unethical deception in advertisements
can take many forms, including basing sales messages on incomplete evidence or
engaging in bait-and-switch tactics, whereby the product or service advertised
grabs people’s attention, but when they ask, they are told it isn’t available
and they are steered toward a more expensive version or product.
Other potentially deceptive practices
are the use of enhanced illustrations and testimonials. Any illustration can
now be altered by a computer, making this a much easier form of deception. Some
deceptive testimonials were produced with smoking, and capitalized on
testimonials by opera stars and athletes to promote the pleasure of smoking.
“Pseudotestimonials” capitalized on having actors, dressed in lab coats to
imply that they were medical professionals, recommend the pain-killing
properties of over-the-counter remedies. More prevalent today are advertising
messages presented in the guise of news or entertainment, advertisement that
show violence or demeaning behavior as acceptable behavior, product promotions
disguised as teaching aids, and obvious displays of brand-name product in
movies and television programs. The list could go on and on.
There are so many product and services
available that it is impractical to make any definitive list of the advertising
practices that are ethical or not ethical. The first consideration for
advertisers and media should be whether the product or service under
consideration is legal. Then, is the appeal legitimate, or even plausible?.
Look at the clothing and cosmetics ads
in contemporary fashion magazines. Jeans and other apparel are sold by the
millions, but how many in the sprite-sizes depicted in so many of the ads? Or
ask the time-worn question : how many women fret aloud about rings around the
collar or in the toilet bowl? Granted, the models and the poses are intended to
garb attention and create the mystique for the merchandise, but how honest –
indeed, how plausible – are such depictions ?.
Pay attention to ads on TV, radio, in
newspapers and magazines and evaluate them yourself. Are the sales pitches for
beverages, autos, appliances—you-name-it – honest and appropriate for the wide
variety of audiences who watch tv , listen to radio, read publications ? do the
media in which the ads appears promote social responsibility one minute, or on
one page, and then allow depiction of antisocial behavior in the remaining time
or space ?.
Advertisers need to evaluate message
content and placement and anticipate the potential effects on audiences,
including audiences the advertiser doesn’t really want to reach but who might
well be in the line of fire – children and immature adults, for example, or
people who cannot afford the products being advertised. Persistent and
persuasive messages about the need to have brand-name clothing or to drink
alcoholic beverages are two examples. At best they ignite family arguments, at
worst they spark criminal activities, including vicious thefts.
Some may argue that “creative”
advertising might well be misinterpreted by vulnerable people; that part of the
intrigue of ads is the potential for double-meanings, which appeal to
audiences. I agree, to appoint; the point is when impressionable audiences
suspend reality. Ads can be powerful teachers. The fear is that the lessons are
not always appropriate to the audiences watching or reading or listening to the
ads. “Miller time” is not an entitlement for everyone, nor are expensive cars,
clothing, or jewelry. Advertisers, and the media that poor and then pitch
appealing messages that temp poor men and women to live well beyond their
means. Although they are not their brother’s keepers, they should have concern
for the social implications of how their messages are received.
Advertisers can become involved in many
other potentially unethical situations. Some, for example, pressure the mass
media for special treatment, including favorable mentions in editorial sections
or on-air. Some threaten television program content by canceling or avoiding
advertising before, during, or even after programs that special-interest groups
criticize. It matters little whether the interest group has previewed the
program in question; the threat of dissatisfaction with a pending program can
be enough to prompt advertiser pressure was a major reason the magazine went ad
free, putting the burden of paying for the magazine on subscribers and
organizations that only very strong and very determined media can withstand
advertiser pressures.
Advertising’s ethical obligations are
not limited to the content and placement of ads. They include also the
obligation to be ethical business, specifically to pay their bill on time.
Most, if not all of the mass media operate close to their checkbooks. “
Deadbeat” advertisers cheat them of their honest due.
THE MASS MEDIA ANDADVERTISING ETHICS
Dishonesty, deception, and duplicity are
not limited to advertisers and advertising. Look at some situations that
advertising-supported media face – situations that can spell the life or death
of media and of content presented in the media.
The mass media that accept advertising
are tightrope performers. They have a big stake in the advertising they accept
and they cannot be casual about accepting any that might inappropriate,
offensive, or unacceptable to parts of the audiences they serve – the same
audiences that attract advertisers.
Some media try to appear to be open and
editorially independent. They accept advertisement for products and services
but reserve the right to criticize the use of those products and services. Few
advertisers take kindly to such policies, however, unless the particular medium
offers them superb demographics – audiences that respond favorably to the
advertised products and services. Here, again, very strong media can be
critical of advertised products and services, but few are.
Questions that need to be asked
regularly of the mass media and of advertisers include the following; can a
mass medium accept all advertising? Advertising that its staff members condemn
or criticize because they believe the products or services are contrary to their
audience’s needs or interests? Can an advertised product be acceptable for one
audience and not another? For one time slot and not another? Is such
accommodation honest or fair, or deceptive to advertisers, audiences, or both?
Although public radio and public
television do not accept paid advertising, they do accept underwriting and
carry out extensive fundraising activities. Their acknowledgement of these
donations has become more obtrusive, prompting at least one question; are
credits for sponsorship really advertisements supporting stations that profess
to be ad-free?
The few publications that are
reader-supported have big subscription prices and they usually make appeals to
individuals and organizations for memberships or underwriting funds. These
publications do not want to alienate their readers so they establish
sponsor-acceptability standards.
There are other ethical pitfalls facing
the mass media. Prompt payment for advertising was mentioned earlier. There are
other on the business side of media operations. For example, is it honest to undersell
the published advertising rates? To “sell off the rate card?” to lower ad rates
selectively for one advertiser or another? Is it ethical for advertising sales
people to coerce editorial staff to trade editorial or program space and time
for ad contracts? To promise “Puffs” in exchange for advertising contract? Is
it ethical to inflate audience numbers or to give false audience demographics
to potential advertisers? I hope you will answer “No” to all of those question
– or have convincing arguments to defend questionable and unethical business
practices.
Advertising rates are based on the
audiences that the media draw. The media must give honest numbers to
advertisers and potential advertisers and they must also have honest tactics
for generating and retaining audiences. Circulation auditing services, such as
the audit bureau of circulation (ABC) for print and A. C. Nielsen for
television, are retained by media to verify these numbers. These services are
costly but advertisers and ad agencies want independent assurances that the
media they pay offer the audiences they want to reach. Experience has convinced
major advertisers that unaudited, unverified media don’t deserve their serious
attention – and dollars.
Few media people like to admit how
advertising can directly affect mass media content. But television and radio
networks and stations are very conscious of the fact that advertisers don’t
want their products to be connected with controversy, so they may refuse to air
potentially controversial programs, or they ask producers to modify the content
to make the programs less controversial. Publications are more specialized than
network television but they are not immune from advertiser pressures. Audiences
can be deprived of significant ideas when the media that pretend to be open
arenas are not, and when advertisers assume the prerogatives of media content
decision makers.
The mass media need to monitor and keep
their own business and advertising activities ethical, and to guard against
offending their audiences. Ti this end, they have practices and procedures for
evaluating advertising before they accept it for publication or broadcast.
Years ago, many newspapers prohibited advertising for alcoholic beverages. Some
also prohibited advertisements for patent medicines, abortion clinics, and
tobacco products. Some newspaper and magazines currently prohibit ads for guns.
X-rated films, “gentlemen’s clubs,” products made from or tested by animals,
personal care products, and controversial political and social organizations
such as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups. Some media reject advertisements
for foods and beauty products with ingredients they believe are unhealthy, or
abortion clinics or pro-life counselors, or even term paper “consultants”. To
date, none of these prohibitions – except those against some controversial
groups or ideas – has sparked serious complaints that an advertiser’s freedom
of the press has been infringed. Some other media companies accept any and all
advertising because they believe in the letter and spirit of the first
amendment. A few even editorialize against advertisements they carry, assured
that their viewpoints are equally protected by the first amendment but not, of
course, from ad cancellations.
Television broadcasters, on the other
hand, are required by law to reject cigarette advertising and to limit
advertising during Saturday morning children’s programs. Network advertising
for other products and services is scrutinized for acceptability before it is
allowed to be broadcast. Television and radio stations have their own standards
for acceptability, usually based on whether the advertisement will violate
viewers or listeners tastes – and those tastes vary by region and time-of-day.
Anyone in doubt should analyze the ads on early-morning, daytime,
early-evening, prime-time, and late-night television.
Standards of advertising acceptability
have become more complicated than list of products to be avoided. The men and
women in charge of advertising acceptability must judge advertising messages as
well as products, and they often have to negotiate on deadline. They fear
last-minute contracts and late arrival of ad copy as much as they fear ads that
mislead or misinform. They work to protect the reputations of the publications,
networks, and stations they work for and to minimize controversy that might
affect circulations or ratings. It would be nice to be able to say that
standards of advertising acceptability standards with censorship, but
acceptability standards, developed carefully and considering the impact of
advertising messages on the specific audiences of specific media, are a mark of
social responsibility and away for media to describe clearly, to advertisers
and audiences alike, what they stand for.
An advertising technique that concerns
the media is the “advertorial”, paid advertising that is prepared to look like
editorial copy, entertainment, or feature programming. Although advertisers
usually make that advertorials are labeled as such, many of them copy the
newspaper or magazine’s type and editorial format so thoroughly that readers
find it hard to distinguish the advertising copy from the publications
editorial offerings. Magazine publishers have become especially concerned that
advertorials visually mimic their magazines editorial pages, thus confusing
readers; the Magazine Publishers Association (MPA) has issued guidelines for
advertorials. The MPA is a voluntary organization, however, and not all
magazines belong to it, so enforcement of
the MPA guidelines is limited.
Veteran journalist Gilbert Cranberg has
expressed fear that if the difference between advertising and editorial blurs
further, especially if the advertising sections are prepared by a newspaper’s
editorial staff members, the traditional protections of the first Amendment may
become eroded (Stein, 1993). His concern is probably welcomed by newspaper
staff members who dislike being asked to write promotional copy for advertising
sections. One solution to both problems is to assign special advertising
supplements or sections to a department and staff clearly separated from the
paper’s editorial department.
A natural question arises from the
discussion of the separation of advertising and editorial duties. That is, how
obvious must the separation of editorial
and advertising be? Both large and small
mass media, because they are market-driven, often crease departments and
features that parallel advertising interests, such as travel or food sections.
Magazine editorial contents so they can solicit advertising that matches
editorial subjects. Many readers appreciate finding advertisement that
complement the information contained in he articles they read. Ethically, are
editorial briefings good business practice because they eventually serve
readers, or unethical conflicts of interest?
The television version of advertorials
has begun to proliferate on cable channels and a few over-the-air stations.
There is no reason to believe that other TV channels will be immune to them.
The most deceptive among them, prepared by advertisers, appear to be
interviews, demonstrations, or discussions. The production quality competes with
network- and station-produced programs. However, they are prepared for one
purpose – to promote or sell specific products and services, especially health
and beauty products, home improvement products and tools, and food-processing
equipment – and they are one-sided. Some of the programs are offered in
videocassettes, too, in an attempt to increase direct sales.
Although the products and the program
contents may not raise serious ethical questions, there is one problem; viewers
might not realize that the programs they are watching have as their sole
purpose the sale of a product or service.
The potential for deception increases
with every new publication or channel. Cable television operators have added
many channels in recent years, and will no doubt add more as soon as
economically feasible. Viewers increasingly need to be informed when they are
watching programs that are totally advertising, product only to sell a specific
manufacturer’s product or a specific organization’s services.
Advertising is important to the social,
cultural, and economic life of the nation, to individuals as well as to groups,
and to the mass media. If advertising and advertisers do not uphold high
ethical standards, they and the nation suffer.
MERRILL: Commentary
Here was have the ends-means problem.
Because the purpose (end) of advertising is to create image and sell products,
there (is? Is not?) a need for it to be truthful. The deontologist on this
issues (Carol Reuss) would say that there is a need for truth because truth is per
se an ethical principle; David Gordon, taking the teleological position,
contends that because advertising need to create good images and make sales, it
can be excused from telling the truth.
This seems a rather strange
“controversy” for an ethics book. But here it is and we must deal with it. One
would think the teleological position is really pragmatics, not ethics, and
that Machiavellian considerations
dominate instead of ethical ones. But, of course, there are other times in
ethical discourse where truth is set aside because of possible consequences, so
it could be that this is what we find here.
For example, it might be contended that
people need to accept some advertising messages, such as the warnings that
smoking is dangerous to one’s health. Is it, than, not ethical to stretch the
truth somewhat, or to hide certain peripheral facts, in order to accomplish
your purpose? Such a case can be made,
weak though I think it is. Does a beneficial end justify the means (even when
the means may be unethical )? I agree with Immanuel Kant that it does not. But
this kind of rationalization is used in political advertising all the time. In
order to keep “that scoundrel out of office” where he might be destructive to
the people’s best interest, it is justifiable to paint him as more villainous
than he really is. If truth were the criterion for political advertising, there
would be very little such advertising.
If truth were the criterion for
political advertising, there would be very little such advertising.
So we can see that, in a very broadly
interpreted altruistic sense, advertising that is less than truthful can be
considered ethical if we are thinking pragmatically or teleologically. The
purpose of advertising is o sell, we are often told; course, what is wrong is
that it ignores the normal ethical consideration of truth-telling; to
unwarranted expenditure of money, and often to getting something that does not
live up to promises.
Again we hear the voice of Kant: just
tell the truth. Be principled; feel a duty to truth-telling, without worrying
about possible consequences. But then, from somewhere inside our rationality,
comes the voice of the consequence-oriented ethicist; think of the expectations
of your employer. I think about the purpose of your work. Think about the good
that selling this product (or this candidate) may do for others.
The perennial question arises; truth or
consequences?
Advertising – at least certain kinds –
can lead to obvious benefits to others and to society as a whole. But advertising
can also result in overspending, conspicuous consumption, and the inculcation
of unrealistic and frustrating expectations. Should truth play a key role in
such advertising? Machiavelli would have said “Yes” – if your purposes can be
secured by telling the truth. If not, then it would be permissible – even wise
– to tamper with the truth to the extent necessary to achieve your ends.
It seems to be all right with Gordon
that advertising can play fast and loose with the truth; after all, he might
say it is no more than a form of “commercial poetry” and that departing from
the truth is simply creative embellishment. I believe that audiences of
advertising expect and desire truth even though they may recognize that they
seldom get it. It is regretful that Reuss does not take a firmer position
against untruthful advertising in her arguments. She does, I think quite
effectively, point out other problem areas in advertising ethics (such as
advertisers not paying their bills on time, and the use of advertorials). But
her position on truth in advertising is somewhat puzzling. For example, she
says that “[u]nethical deception in advertisements can take many forms”. Is she
implying that some deception is ethical? I would think that all deception is
unethical. But, then, may be not in today’s permissive moral climate.
Gordon is taking the Machiavellian view
– at least a modified version of it. Reuss does seem to try to keep truth at
the core of her ethical posture – agreeing, although at times half-heartedly,
with Kant that truth-telling is a categorical imperative. Just who is correct?
Who has the right ethical perspective on this truth-in-advertising question? I
can’t give an answer. Both perspectives may well be correct (ethical),
depending on which megatheory of ethics one accepts. I prefer the Kantian view
that never in advertising should the advertiser resort to untruths. Perhaps the
reader will be able to cut his or her way through the thickets of ethical
confusion and find a comportable and satisfying clearing in which to find a
moral resting place. But I doubt it. As with all the controversies in this
book, there is simply no clear and completely satisfying answer. But there is
no reason for us to discontinue the search.
