Randal Marlin
Page 37
73 Ward 291.
74 Ward 304.
75 Ward 306.
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CHAPTER 5
Advertising and Public
CHAPTER 5:
Relations Ethics
ADVERTISING AND
PUBLIC RELATIONS
ETHICS
InTRoDUCTIon
Propaganda in the English-speaking world tends to be linked in people’s minds pri-
marily with ideology or political power. This is not so in the Spanish-speaking world
where the word for advertising is “propaganda.” I discovered this in the early 1980s
when I took out a classified advertisement in Worldpaper to ask for samples of propaganda. Worldpaper appears as a supplement to various newspapers around the globe
and is published in Spanish and English. From South America only commercial
advertisers responded. Despite the difference in meaning, there is a close similarity
between ideological, political, and commercial forms of persuasion, at least so far
as principles of persuasion are concerned. The same is true of related ethical issues.
Together, advertising and its close relative public relations shape public consciousness.
While the former is directly concerned with encouraging purchases, the latter is more
diffuse, seeking to improve the public image of a corporation, to resist government
control, encourage investment, head off consumer boycotts, and the like. In both cases,
questions of ethics in communication arise as important issues. In light of the stated
similarities, the non-categorization of advertising and public relations as propaganda
may seem arbitrary, and insights into ethical problems in these areas can be expected
to have implications for propaganda more narrowly defined.
ADVERTISIng
The root of the word “advertise” is the Latin advertere, meaning to turn towards or, in connection with the mind ( anima), to notice. Advertisements give notice of upcoming 183
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The British “Lord Kitchener Wants you” (middle) and American “I Want you for
U.S. Army” (right) recruitment posters may have been inspired by a marketing
campaign from BDV Cigarettes (left).
events or things for sale. Most constitute paid-for space or time, although they may
be provided free of charge for some worthy charity or other cause. Advertising is usu-
ally commercial, but there can also be paid-for political or ideological advertising.
Sometimes this goes by the name “advertorial,” as when the space is used to publi-
cize matter written in the form of a column or editorial. The expression “advocacy
advertising” is also used in this connection. Government involvement in and legal
controls over advertising will be addressed in Chapter 7, while the question of free-
dom of expression is the subject of Chapter 6. Here, our concern is with the ethics of
advertising.
In evaluating advertising as a cultural phenomenon, it is wrong to treat it as a kind
of monolith, as if everything one can say about advertising necessarily applies to all
forms. It is true that advertising often gives information and is valuable for doing so,
but some forms of advertising give precious little information, and even that little is
wrong. Think of cigarette advertisements in which the company logo dominates a scene
of pristine nature with lakes, mountains, and healthy-looking individuals. The picture
conveys the opposite impression to the dirty butts, stale breath, and poor health that
are associated more accurately with the product. However, it is equally wrong to con-
demn all advertising, since it can perform a valuable service. The classified advertise-
ment is a good example of a valuable and necessary form of communication: I have
furniture for sale, and you are looking for a bargain; my classified ad brings us together
for our mutual interest. There are also many ways in which advertising arts can improve
our lives by drawing attention to new possibilities in the way of products or services
that inventive genius makes available to consumers. If what follows seems somewhat
negative towards advertising, it is because we are looking at the subset of advertising
that qualifies as propaganda. Even within this subset there are defensible uses of such
advertising.
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Beyond question then, a significant part of advertising is valuable. However, many people do object to some advertising practices, which they see as a threat to their
autonomy because the messages are designed not so much to inform as to persuade.
As we noted in the case of cigarettes, it is not the reality of a product, but a consciously
fostered image that is often projected. The image is designed to respond to basic needs
and aspirations that are in line with fashionable trends in opinion and attitudes. Much
research is done to determine what will motivate a target audience. Early this century,
Walter Dill Scott’s formulation of basic motivations included the maternal instinct,
greed, emulation, the desire for health and good looks, the desire to be appreciated by
others, etc. In the 1930s, advertisers began to use Freudian theory; by the 1950s, sexual
imagery was being used in ads on a large scale.1
On the whole, advertising is a modern necessity. The modern world clearly
benefits from economies of scale, and these are only possible through large-scale mar-
keting. The question is how this marketing can be achieved. The answer until very
recently was through the use of the mass media. The introduction of the Internet has
profoundly altered the way in which many businesses are conducted. The problem of
producers of goods, and of sellers generally, has always been to reach potential buy-
ers. Internet communication, once one pays the cost of an Internet service provider,
theoretically opens one up to a market of hundreds of millions of people around the
world. But there are obvious hurdles, such as language problems and the fact that
people put filters on “spam” or unwanted e-mail communications with the result that
someone identified as a spammer risks being cut off by the service provider. The mar-
keter can be assisted by gaining information about Internet users so that those likely
to be interested in buying (or subscribing to a service) can be determined in advance
of an approach. Today people willingly provide a lot of information about themselves
through Facebook, Twitter, and other “social media” as they are called. This infor-
mation can be processed by sophisticated computer programs and search devices to
determine likely potential customers. Not every business has an equal chance to make
use of this potent force for change, but already there have been clear winners, not sur-
prisingly in the area of highly literate communities, such as the trade in secondhand
books. There have also been losers, people with businesses at a website with no callers.
There is a premium to be paid for catchy, informative website names because peo-
ple using the Internet use search engines, which pick all relevant sites featuring a key
word. If you have the
right name, you have an advantage in being more easily acces-
sible to those trying to find you. It is too early to predict how the Internet will shape
the future world, but it is clear that the potential is revolutionary and that anything
said about advertising today must be qualified by that recognition. There is a huge
potential for a certain democratization of the commercial world in that what used to
be, and to some extent still is, “word of mouth” advertising is greatly amplified through
the use of social media. Instead of being a passive recipient of corporate messages
from billboards, television, magazines, and the like, people today can alert friends
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to products they find particularly interesting or useful. Friends and relatives have a credibility within their circle that is trusted. It is not surprising that some advertisers
have tried to gain access by pretending to be a “friend” or acquaintance of the targeted
person. The pretence can be all the more deceptive when the advertiser knows certain
personal facts about the target (through Facebook, for example) and in referring to
them gives the impression of being within the circle.
There is much uncertainty about the future development and impact of the
Internet. Currently, large bookstore chains and the online giant Amazon have
squeezed out many independent “bricks and mortar” bookstores and publishers. But
the Internet has also made possible the success of more self-published books, and
authors are sharing information to increase the odds of such successes. The big hope is
that some book will “go viral” in the social media, producing huge demand with very
little outlay.
The question is not whether advertising should exist, but what forms it should
take. What ethics should govern advertising, and why? We will approach these ques-
tions as we did in the previous chapter, with one important caveat: an alleged over-
riding public interest justification for some form of otherwise immoral propaganda
(deceptive atrocity propaganda in a war defensible on other grounds, for example) is
less plausible here. The private, profit-maximization interest of an advertiser tends to
dominate, and deception can be less easily justified.
Harms from Advertising
When an advertised product actually causes predictable harm, the advertiser may share
some responsibility for such harm by virtue of success in increasing consumption of the
product. Thus, one category of harms, and hence of ethical issues, relates to the product
itself. A second category relates to the means used to sell a product. Such means may
involve deliberate deception; exploitation of women; the presentation of a false social
picture, demeaning to certain minorities; or the promotion of greed, envy, or a lifestyle
not widely sustainable in the light of environmental concerns. The means may also be
immediately offensive through noise, visual pollution of the landscape or cityscape,
and the like.
A reasonably comprehensive catalogue of complaints against advertising includes
the following:
1. First, and perhaps foremost, in terms of number of complaints received by differ-
ent bodies set up to monitor advertising is that advertising so often is misleading.
Its benefits come from linking an interested seller to an interested buyer, by letting
potential consumers become aware of what is on offer and for what price. Any mis-
leading bit of information is likely to cause frustration, either from the inconvenience
of seeking out a product only to find that the price is higher than indicated, or from
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discovering that the product is not what was expected (assembly being required, for example), or that the product does not perform as indicated. Such inconvenience is
so great that in Canada laws exist against misrepresentation. These laws are regularly
enforced, sometimes with steep fines.
2. Women have so often been demeaned in advertising that their exploitation is in a
category of its own. Among the many offensive ways in which they have been por-
trayed, the following are some recurring themes from fashion, cosmetic, alcohol, ciga-
rette, and laundry detergent advertisements: woman have unsatisfactory bodies, in
need of weight-loss, skin-care products, hair conditioning, etc.; women exist primar-
ily as sex objects for men; women need age retardants; women derive their identity
solely as home-providers; women are acceptable targets of sexual violence; and so on.
Especially pernicious is the treatment of very young girls as sex objects.2
3. Some advertising encourages greed. By depicting luxury items as requirements for a
normal life and within the grasp of everyone with a credit card, advertisements have
often tended to stimulate purchasing beyond what is wise, affordable, and socially
responsible. The vice of prodigality has always been around, and advertisers have not
invented it. However, there is no need to contribute to such a human failing by pre-
senting imagery that encourages the idea that success or failure in life is tied to having
or not having the material goods advertised.
4. Advertising sometimes encourages anti-social behaviour. Automobile television
commercials are commonly irresponsible in this regard, featuring recklessness, such as
cars speeding beyond safe limits. Tobacco advertising encourages a deadly, addictive,
pol uting, and disfiguring habit by suppressing all these features and presenting imag-
ery suggestive of bonding, friendship, good times, sophistication, nature, and the like.
5. Advertising occasionally reinforces ethnic stereotypes. Sometimes this is done by
omission, for example, by having a disproportionate number of models white-skinned
in a racially diverse community. At other times, ethnic stereotypes are exploited in an
attempt at humour.
6. Another phenomenon worth special attention is the extent to which a gambling
mentality is encouraged in modern advertising. Particularly offensive are misleading
representations implying or suggesting that a person has already won some lottery
when in fact nothing of the sort has happened. They are asked to send in money for
what turns out to be continued eligibility to win. In some cases they are told they
are “guaranteed” to win, but the fine print says this means only that they will keep
re-entering a pool if they lose. The gambling mentality creates false hopes for many
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and gratification for only a few. In this regard, the elderly are particularly susceptible since they often see no other way in which their lives might be improved economically.
7. The targeting of children deserves special condemnation when they are used as a
means of putting emotional pressure on parents to purchase objects. The booklet,
“Ethics in Advertising,” issued by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications
in 1997 put it well: “Much advertising directed at children apparently tries to exploit
their credulity a
nd suggestibility, in the hope that they will put pressure on their par-
ents to buy products of no real benefit to them. Advertising like this offends against
the dignity and rights of both children and parents; it intrudes upon the parent-child
relationship and seeks to manipulate it to its own ends.”3
8. Advertising sometimes presents false imagery to create, through repetition, associa-
tions in our minds that are unrepresentative of reality and of which we are not fully
conscious. This works to undermine our autonomy. In extreme form, subliminal adver-
tising reaches us below the threshold of conscious awareness. The practice of “product
placement” introduces brand-name products into a movie or television show in such a
way that the viewer comes away with a greater awareness of the product. Mark Crispin
Miller has described how Coca-Cola, after buying Columbia Pictures, gave a subtle, or
perhaps not so subtle, boost to its product in the film Murphy’s Romance:
In Murphy’s Romance, [Sally] Field’s nice son goes looking for a job; and while
“Coca-Cola” sheds its deep red warmth throughout Murphy’s homey store, in a big
supermarket where the kid is told abruptly that he isn’t needed, two (blue) Pepsi
signs loom coldly on the wall like a couple of swastikas.
A further unwelcome effect of this form of advertising is the impact it has on the
creative process. As Miller writes:
The rise of product placement has, however, damaged movie narrative not only
through the shattering effect of individual plugs but also—more profoundly—
through the partial transfer of creative authority out of the hands of filmmaking
professionals and into the purely quantitative universe of the CEOs. All the scenes,
shots, and lines mentioned above represent the usurpation by advertising of those
authorial prerogatives once held by directors and screenwriters, art directors and
set designers—and by studio heads, who generally cared about how their films were
made, whereas the managers now in charge are thinking only of their annual reports.4
The Pontifical Council of Pope John Paul II, himself a playwright and philoso-
pher, took note of the problem at a more general level:
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