Ethics and Laws in Advertising
A collection of moral rules that direct behaviour or how an activity is carried out is referred to as ethics. A method of communication between a vendor and a customer is called advertising.
Thus, ethics in advertising refers to a set of clearly defined standards that lay out the parameters for how the supplier and the customer should communicate. The most crucial aspect of the advertising sector is ethics. Advertising has numerous advantages, but there are also certain aspects that go against its ethical standards.
An ethical advertisement is one that upholds standards of decency, doesn’t deceive, or makes fictitious or untrue claims.
Ads now employ a lot of puffing and are more exaggerated. The advertisers seem to be ignorant of moral standards and values. They just don’t comprehend and are unable to distinguish between right and wrong.
By presenting a well-decorated, puffed-out, and vibrant advertisement, marketers want to boost demand for the product, increase sales, and attract more and more people. They assert that their product is the best, different from those of the rivals, more advantageous, and more cost-effective. However, the majority of these advertisements are deemed to be dishonest, deceiving, and immoral. The advertisement for kids’ evening snacks is the finest example of this form of advertisement since it uses glue and colouring to make the goods seem shiny and alluring to viewers of the television commercials, who are then persuaded to purchase the product without giving it a second thought.
Advertising’s nature and aim are intimately correlated with its ethical standards. Exaggerating the ad is sometimes required to demonstrate the value of the product. For instance, a sanitary napkin commercial demonstrates how, when dumped into a river by several girls, the sanitary napkin absorbed up the whole river’s water. Advertising thus had the only function of informing women about the calibre of the goods. Every lady is aware that this is impossible to do realistically, yet the ad was still approved. This is not evidence that the advertisement was unethical.
Our beliefs have an impact on ethics as well. The advertising may not be considered immoral if the marketers create them with the hope that their target audience would comprehend, be convinced by them to think about, and then act upon, their messages. However, if advertisers think they can deceive consumers by promoting unrealistic claims such as the ability to furnish your home or office by simply clicking a button or the ability to become a millionaire by simply purchasing a lottery ticket, they will fail and be criticised for their unethical behaviour.
Recently, the Vetican issued an article which says ads should follow three moral principles – Truthfulness, Social Responsibility and Upholding Human Dignity.
Generally, big companies never lie as they have to prove their points to various ad regulating bodies. Truth is always said but not completely. Sometimes its better not to reveal the whole truth in the ad but at times truth has to be shown for betterment.
Pharmaceutical Advertising: They help creating awareness, but one catchy point here is that the advertisers show what the medicine can cure but never talk about the side effects of that same thing or the risks involved in intake of it.
Alcohol: Till today, there hasn’t come any liquor ad which shows anyone drinking the original liquor. They use mineral water and sodas in their advertisements with their brand name. These types of ads are called surrogate ads. These type of ads are totally unethical when liquor ads are totally banned. Even if there are no advertisements for alcohol, people will continue drinking.
Cigarettes and Tobacco: These products should be never advertised as consumption of these things is directly and badly responsible for cancer and other severe health issues. These as are already banned in countries like India, Norway, Thailand, Finland and Singapore.
Ads for social causes: These types of ads are ethical and are accepted by the people. But ads like condoms and contraceptive pills should be limited, as these are sometimes unethical, and are more likely to loose morality and decency at places where there is no educational knowledge about all these products.
Looking at all these above mentioned points, advertisers should start taking responsibility of self regulating their ads by:
- design self regulatory codes in their companies including ethical norms, truth, decency, and legal points
- keep tracking the activities and remove ads which don’t fulfill the codes.
- Inform the consumers about the self regulatory codes of the company
- Pay attention on the complaints coming from consumers about the product ads.
- Maintain transparency throughout the company and system.
When all the above points are implemented, they will result in:
- making the company answerable for all its activities
- will reduce the chances of getting pointed out by the critics or any regulatory body.
- will help gain confidence of the customers, make them trust the company and their products.
