Ethics in Advertising and Promotion

Author: Mr. Abhinav Bhardwaj, Associate Prof. KIET Group of Institutions, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh Contact : abhin23@gmail.com, +919953201969

ABSTRACT Advertising is an instrument used for various purposes but todays advertising is doing more then that. From the inception of it, people are pointing towards its usefullness and impact, which was always very high, on the society. It was criticised, humiliated yet made mandatory for creating hype and selling. Todays advertising is delivering the messages which are not appropriate and acceptable. Products are promoted with a motive of selling anyhow, yet people are not voicing against it and having CHALTA HAI attitude. The objective of this paper is to bring forward the issues related to the ethical aspect of advertising and promotion, its impact on an individual and on society as well. Key Words: Branding, Products, policies, responsibilty, vigour

Introduction
Advertising is any paid form of non-personal communication about an organization, good, service or idea by an identified sponsor (Berkowitz, Crane, Kerin, Hartley, & Rudelius, 494). Advertisements are displayed through various means to a large audience. They can be found on the Internet, in a magazine, or even on the highway. Advertisements are everywhere! Their main goal is to grab the consumer's attention about a specific good, service or institution. To achieve this goal, advertisers use an assortment of techniques. However, some of the techniques used are illegal, unethical, or both. To illustrate, there is an illegal trick known as "bait and switch". This tactic requires placing an ad for an item at tremendous value. Upon reaching the store, the shopper finds that the item is "no longer available" and in order to alleviate their sorrow at missing the deal they are directed to a similar item that, while not as good of a bargain (sometimes no bargain at all) closely matches what they came for (Rubak, 2001). There is a great

deal of controversy concerning the ethics of advertising. Advertising is more accepted by society if there are benefits, like cheaper prices. With their product ads, companies sponsor events (such as sports), reduce newspaper and magazine prices, and cover production costs for television shows. Conversely, when advertising has a negative effect on society, it is rejected. For example, the ban placed on smoking ads. Smoking causes people to be ill, so they visit the hospital. Society (the tax payers) pays for the medical costs; therefore smoking ads are not advantageous. Ethics in advertising to most sounds like the definition for irony. However, the practice of truthful advertising is commonplace in todays society. Advertisers are held accountable for the messages they produce. So too are the manufacturers, whom are held accountable for their products meeting the standards set forth by the advertisement. For the most part this is a self-regulated practice. Once an advertised product is called out for not living up to expectation, recovery of reputation and overall positive brand imaging are rarely had. The added fear of civil lawsuits pertaining to deceptive advertising coupled with penal laws which prohibit such dishonest acts, make for an industry centered on truthful intent. The Federal Trade Commission is the governing authority against unfair and deceptive acts or practices in commerce. Meaning false or misleading information in advertising media is punishable by judicial law. There seems to be a fine line as to what is unlawful in terms of false advertising. The act of being deceptive is not the same as producing deception. Wikipedia states illegal deception as, the potential to deceive, which is interpreted to occur when consumers see the advertising to stating to them, explicitly or implicitly, a claim that may not realize is false or material. The latter means that the claim, if relied on for making a purchasing decision, is likely to be harmful by adversely affecting that decision. Recently the F.T.C. exercised their authoritative power against the tobacco industry through their use of previously undefined terms such as low tar, lights, ultralights used on cigarette packaging. The terms were used to mistakenly identify varying levels of additives such as nicotine or tar for which no variance actually exist. All cigarettes contain the same basic levels of such.