Ethics in advertising can be described as that fine line between wrong and right. Many advertisers today straddle that line, and risk what is “acceptable”. One of the biggest unwritten rules in advertising is, never intend to directly deceive. To me this is surprising because almost every ad has some sort of deceiving concept to them. As an example, I bought Crest Vivid White toothpaste because it said you were guaranteed visibly whiter teeth in just one week. Who doesn’t want white teeth in a week just from reasonably priced toothpaste? I used the toothpaste and after a week I did not notice a difference, so I waited two weeks and still no difference. I eventually used to whole tube of toothpaste and my teeth were not any visibly whiter. I soon realized that my teeth were probably not getting whiter because I drink a large amount of dark coffee everyday, which yellows my teeth. I was upset because this toothpaste guaranteed I would have whiter teeth and I did not, I would have known this if the toothpaste said that It would vary from one person to another depending on their eating, grooming, and smoking habits. Untimely the marketers assumed that as consumers we would already know this, but the truth is if our teeth are yellow we are using this toothpaste to get them whiter, and it doesn’t work unless you stop your bad habits that yellow your teeth.
Another unwritten rule in the ethics of advertising is to not use lust, greed, or anything else that does not respect each and every human being. I laughed when I read this because I think almost every beauty product geared towards both men and women contain lust. In a commercial for Brittney Spears new perfume there is a small scene of her in bed with a man and it looks intense, you hardly see the mans face but you see hers. This is a perfect example of lust, you won’t buy this perfume because you are honestly in “love” with Brittney spears but you rather lust, or want, what the ad represents which is sex and happiness. In another commercial made by Axe for men shower products a man washes in the Axe body wash and when he walks outside millions of girls in bikinis come running to him because of the Axe he used. These girls are in tiny string bikinis with model-like bodies that do not depict the average women. Men do not want this because they are in “love” with these women but because they lust for them, they want the feeling that flawless women in string bikinis will come running to them if they use this product. This is a perfect example of how unrealistic advertisers are getting, and along with being extremely unrealistic they are becoming so desperate to sell their products that they do not care how they depict women and men in their ads.
Throughout history there have been many accounts of companies falsely advertising their products. In 1921 Listerine advertised that it was a cure for bad breath, dandruff, coughs, sore throats, a cut protectant and an after shave gel. They were slapped with many lawsuits and fines against them and were forced to spend ten million dollars in re-advertising their product. In 1996 Amoco released an as saying that because their gasoline was clear in color that it had superior performance and was environmentally friendly. They were also slapped with fines and forced to re-advertise.
Although there is an unwritten code of rules in advertising that will never stop the advertisers from falsely portraying people, giving people the wrong ideas, and simple claiming things that their products do not do. In my opinion there needs to be laws set in stone against ad's like these because they are unrealistic and degrading, and it will only get worse.
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment