ETHICS AND ADVERTISING

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.