ETHICS PROJECT REPORT

ETHICS PROJECT REPORT

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  Business Ethics Topic: Ethical Responsibilitieson Advertisement Submitted by:  Mariam Amjad-LCM  Saira Khan-LCM  Mudaseera Muhammad – LCM3335 Submitted to: Ma’am Humaira Hamid Department: Management Sciences National University of Modern Languages
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  Ethics in Advertising Advertisingis a mirror that helps shape the reality it reflects, and sometimes it present a distorted image of reality. Advertisement has an indirect but powerful impact on its society through influence on media. 1-Role Modelfor Children: Ethical Responsibility involves advertisement geared toward children. Children might follow what they see in a commercial, awareness in advertisers about the information they display is mandatory. Children may believe everything depicted on the advertisement is acceptable if fact which is questionable. Example: Beer Companies, Beauty Product.  Beer Companies, using alcoholic drinks alongside driving and water activities. The advertisement portrays the fun of drinking but not the danger involved in it.  Beauty Product, showing children in swimming pool without adult supervision is questionable considering the safety implication of for the children.
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  2-Strive to tellTruth: Advertisement should strive to tell truth. Re-known, famous companies always depict truth in their advertisement as they have involvement counsel or shareholders that monitor activities. There can be legal consequences for false advertisement. Example: Medical technology, Medical technology, showing a person in a wheel chair that might be able to walk in future with the help of medical technology. Even though, the technology is not effective yet. Questions like is this ad misleading people, or a message filled with hope simply or confusing the viewers. 3-SocialResponsibility: Advertising leads towards major concern of being socially responsible to general public.
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  Example: Positive lightin ads. The question arises how to define a positive light, as advertisements generally shows viewers or individuals a positive light. For example, some athletic companies depicts women as strong, capable performing in sports event, while some depict women to be simply beautiful to look at. Both companies are objectifying women, here ethical responsibility of how they portray women. There is no right and wrong answer. 4-Health raise considerations: Advertisements that promotes products with questionable effects on individual’s health. Examples: Alcohol, energy drinks or cigarettes Governments have taken strong actions to limit or minimize tobacco, advertising due to heavy known consequences of health.
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  5-Bothering Consumers: Some advertisingmay still be considered as unethical if they are unwanted or it annoys the consumers in some way. Example: Advertising through emails, telemarketing calls or marketing emails etc. Such advertising are not always illegal but these advertising techniques can bother customers Ultimately ethical questions not always black and white, what one person considers unethical might be ethical or acceptable for other. 6-Unfair Advertising:
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  Forcing customers tobuy things that can cause them harm. According to FTC, advertisements that push products that can be harmful for substantial consumers should be avoided. Example: Drug A drug has serious side effects that cannot be outweighed by benefits, making ads for such drug is considered unfair. Hence it is ethical responsibility of advertisers to avoid it. 7-Avoid creating materialistic demands: In the unconscious part of mind, advertising plays an important and significant role. 86% of mind takes part in buying things through advertisements. It is necessary for companies or advertisers to make sure to depict things that are necessary and good for yourself rather than promoting materialistic demands. Example:
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  8- Respectthe dignityof eachhuman: Do not exploit our "lower inclinations" to compromise our capacity to reflect or decide either through its content or through its impact: using appeals to lust, vanity, envy and greed, and other human weakness. Give special care to the weak and vulnerable: children, young people, the elderly, the poor, and the culturally disadvantaged. Respect Social Responsibilities (promotes consumption, empties, communication, objections) Example: Concern for the ecology advertisement Concern for the ecology advertising should not favor a lavish lifestyle which wastes resources and despoils the environment
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  9-Negative Advertising Techniques: Innegative advertising, the advertiser highlights the disadvantages of competitor products rather than the advantages of their own. The methods are most familiar from the political sphere: see negative campaigning Example: Attack ads 10-Deceptive advertisement: The truthfulness and thoroughness of information businesses provide is one of the main ethical issues in advertising. Businesses may be able to increase sales by hyping products and exaggerating their benefits while omitting information about problems. Advertisements that mislead consumers through deceptive information or omission are illegal. According to the Federal Trade Commission, before a company runs an ad, it needs to have a reasonable basis for the claims it makes, such as objective evidence gathered from surveys, agreement with experts in the field or results from scientific tests and studies. Example: Hiding the grey holes in advertisement.
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  11-Analyze and treatyour consumers: Advertisers should treat consumers fairly based on the nature of the audience to whom the ads are directed and the nature of the product or service advertised. Extra care must be used when advertising to children and other vulnerable audiences to avoid misleading or mistreating them. Advertisers should also use discretion based on the nature of the product or service, especially alcohol and prescription drugs. Example: Classification, treat them on the basis of their nature
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  12-Preferenceto consumer’s privacy: Advertisersshould never compromise consumers’ personal privacy in marketing communications, and their choices as to whether to participate in providing their information should be transparent and easily made. As marketers develop increasingly advanced means of online behavioral targeting, consumers worry about their privacy. In response to consumer concerns and government warnings Example: Online Self-Regulatory Initiative Marketing and media trade associations are launching an online self-regulatory initiative to give consumers greater control over the collection and use of online viewing data. 13-Privacyof ethical concerns: Advertisers and their agencies, and online and offline media, should discuss privately potential ethical concerns, and members of the team creating ads should be given permission to express internally their ethical concerns. Example: Resolving Ethical Dilemma Discuss and resolve ethical dilemmas is essential to practicing the highest ethical standards.
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  14-Means ofadvertisement: Means andtechniques of advertising must also be considered such as, manipulative, exploitative, corrupt and corrupting methods of persuasion and motivation Example: Advertisement Advertisement that play a role of motivational force in the society. 15-Community standards: Ethical standards in advertising need to take community standards into account. A single set of universal standards about what is good, bad, or just acceptable is difficult to apply everywhere. What may be appreciated in one community may be off limits in another. In addition, local histories and social issues interact with ads to produce unique local interpretations and meanings. Example: Ad for jeans plays off Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Last Supper (1495–1498).Genders were reversed and religious imagery has been put into the service of selling. This ad had to be withdrawn in Italy and Spain because the predominately Catholic public did not like it.
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  16-Impressionmanagement: An area whereadvertisers and marketers must decide what is permissible (and therefore justified and ethical) is impression management. This often involves some manipulation of literal facts to put a better or more favorable face on them. Example: It is well known by visitors to Disney parks all over the world through their own experience that posted waiting times for admission to exhibits and amusements go relatively fast and frequently do not take as long as expected. Is it ethical for Disney to post wait times that are actually longer than are likely because they want to make visitors happy about how fast the lines move.
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  17-Prescriptiondrugs: Certain other products,prescription drugs in particular, routinely make much greater disclosure of all the known risks of using the advertised product. Example: Lunesta advertisements speak about the search for a good night’s sleep, but they also offer “important safety information” that the drug can become habit forming and has other side effects such as headaches.