Advertising tactics pose additional ethical challenges. Advertisers have a number of unethical but legal tools at their disposal, including subliminal advertising, emotional appeals, exploitation of less educated individuals, dissemination of propaganda for political campaigns, and other tactics that ethical advertisers routinely refrain from. Ultimately, consumers will be more attracted to companies that don`t use sneaky and psychologically manipulative tactics to win their business. Subsequently, the United States imposed new restrictions on cigarette advertising. In 1999, billboards for tobacco products were banned. In 2010, tobacco companies were banned from sponsoring sporting, musical or artistic events and from displaying their logos on clothing. However, the government stopped banning print advertising. These government efforts have been accompanied by some self-regulation on the part of tobacco companies. After a public outcry over the use of a camel caricature to sell cigarettes (it was feared that such advertising would appeal to children and young people), Camel Cigarettes voluntarily stopped advertising in magazines in 2007. However, in 2013, Camel resumed its practice of advertising in magazines. In 1914, the Federal Trade Commission Act was passed, which created a federal agency to regulate advertising.
The agency focused on controlling misleading and misleading advertising. An advertisement is considered misleading if it contains: This interpretation of the law completely ignores the unethical effects of purely legal advertising, such as: Building brand loyalty in children before they even understand what a brand is, encouraging children to develop a negative self-image, or making children dependent on products that may hinder social development. The best way to act ethically in this area is to promote parents, not children. Despite these self-regulatory measures, watchdog groups are still very concerned about the appeal of television advertising to young people, who are more likely to abuse alcohol than older viewers. In addition, the alcohol industry continues to use advertising calls based on the implicit sexual appeal of drinking alcohol in bars or at parties. This approach is troubling to industry critics, who see the glorification and sexualization of alcohol consumption as another way to attract young people to alcohol products. As with cigarettes, the implicit threat is that if the industry can make young people “addicted” early in life, they will become lifelong users of a product with known health risks. Adolescents who start drinking at age 15 are four times more likely to become alcoholics than those who start drinking at age 21. 5 Americans – especially white Americans – spend hours in tanning salons, making great efforts (and sometimes even great pain and health risks) to darken their skin. In other parts of the world, such as the Caribbean, Africa, East Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, people put a lot of effort into whitening their skin.
They do this by purchasing and applying lightening or lightening creams that claim to make dark skin lighter. (Whether they actually work or not is debatable.) In many of these areas, lighter skin enjoys a better social reputation. This phenomenon is arguably a sad byproduct of colonialism, as it is based on a positive association with Caucasian skin color. The flip side is that in the United States and Europe, darker skin is often considered attractive and exotic. 15. Celebrities who advocate controversial/dangerous products such as drinks, wine and the like, and incur the ire of Mountain Dew social activists, have successfully run a series of fanciful ads aimed at internet users and social media users (an increasingly popular tactic). Perhaps influenced by the remarkable success of insurance company GEICO`s advertising mascot (a green gecko with a cockney accent), Mountain Dew had created a series of commercials featuring a goat with a crazy passion for caffeinated green soda. For one of these commercials, Mountain Dew hired hip-hop artist Tyler the Creator to create and produce the commercial. In the complaint in question, the goat drives a car and is stopped and arrested by a police officer. In a flashback, we see the goat attacking a woman to snatch her bottle of Mountain Dew, leaving the woman bloodied and injured.
In the next scene, the woman tries to identify her attacker from a police queue that shows the goat and four black men. The officer regularly drinks from a bottle of Mountain Dew and urges the woman to make a decision. The goat reacts to the situation by speaking in a parody hip-hop style, using slang phrases like “kick it up” and “you`d better not snitch on a playa”. Meanwhile, the dew-ampened policeman urges the woman to “pin that little jerk” and suggests that it`s “the one with the doo cloth.” Much of the advertising is designed to evoke and provoke emotions, and people`s weakest instincts often engage in it, depriving the consumer of their sovereignty. Based on relevant literature research, various ethical issues in advertising with particular reference to television advertising were compiled. Here is an overview of the same Marilyn (2003). The Federal Trade Commission regulates advertising in the United States. False and misleading advertising falls under the jurisdiction of the FTC. Advertisers must be punished criminally and civilly for illegal advertising. The same sanctions cannot apply to unethical advertising. However, legal publicity that happens to be unethical could still harm the business, especially in the form of negative consumer reactions and reputational damage.
The popularity of Fair and Lovely as well as other skin lightening creams is linked to Indian cultural traditions. Lighter skin has been associated with a higher caste and therefore higher social status. Most of the famous female stars of India`s popular Bollywood film industry are light-skinned. Do Fair and Lovely products – or those of competitors – really make skin clearer? Or is this idea just an illusion maintained by effective advertising? In its official Fair and Loving documentation, HLL only states that the cream contains essential vitamins for skin care and UV blockers (as in sunscreens). In other words, instead of making the skin clearer, Fair and Lovely can only work by preventing the skin from darkening, which is likely to happen in sunny regions of India. Critics claim that these products whiten the shinier skin at best. In this chapter, we begin with an overview of the advertising industry`s “self-regulation” for offensive or unethical advertising. Many advertisements and marketing tactics fall into a regulatory gray area where advertising is technically legal but still offends a portion of the population.