Ethics in Advertisement

Table of content
1-Dedication………………………………………………….2

2-Executive summary………………………………………..3

3-Introduction……………………………………………….4

 Advertising…………………………………………..:………….….4
 Ethics in Advertisement……………………………………………4
 Deceptive Advertising: ………………………………………......4
 Harmful products …………………………………:…………….5
 Community Standards: ………………………………………….5
 Advertisement to Children: …………………………………….5
 Advertisements on internet: …………………………………...6
 Subliminal Advertisement: ....................................................6

4-Literature view: …………………………………………..6

5-Discussion: ………………………………………………8

 Pepsi vs. coke…………………………………………………….........8

 Unethical advertisement of cellular companies…………………..11
 Unethical Advertisement battle between U-fone and Telenor…...11
 U-Fone vs. Zong……………………………………………………..13
 Unethical Cigarette advertisement………………………………...15

6-Field work: ………………………………………………15

7-Conclusion: ………………………………………………17

8-Recommendations: ………………………………………18

9-Bibliography: …………………………………………….19

10-References: ………………………………………………20

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Ethics in Advertisement

Dedication:

We dedicate this to Allah almighty whose love and affection is always with us and
then we dedicate this to our parents whose prayers are always with us and at the end we
dedicate this to our teachers who have teach us some important skills and provide us a lot of
information and knowledge and their guidance is just like a drop of water in the dessert.

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Ethics in Advertisement

Executive summary:

This project was given to us Sir Tassaque Hussain Warraich. The project is
about ethical issues in advertisement. At start this report includes a brief introduction of
ethical issues in advertisement. What are the main ethical issues about advertisement which
we are dealing now a day? In introduction we introduce some issues like advertisement to
children, advertisement of harmful or controversial products, advertisement on internet etc.
after introduction we search some literature and report it in our own wordings after analyzing
the literature. After that we discus some unethical advertisements produced by different
brands. In Group discussion, we discuss some advertisements which are well known and
majority is well aware of that advertisements. These advertisements include Pepsi vs. coke
and U-fone vs. Telenor and Zong. We also interviewed some students to know their views
about ethics in advertisement and report in our final report. Than we try to conclude all the
stuff and the effects of unethical advertisements on children and on society as well. The
social consequences of unethical advertisements and possible results are mentioned in this
report. Than we give some recommendations to control unethical behaviors in
advertisements. What are some possible recommendations through which we can control the
advertisements? What are some necessary measures which we have to take in according to
regulate the advertising agencies?

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Ethics in Advertisement

Ethical issue in Advertisement

Introduction:

What is Ethics?

Ethics can be define as the study of Morality, or

Ethics is the principle of Conduct Governing an individual or Groups.

Advertising:

Advertisement is a form of communication which we use to communicate the

features of our products and services, benefits, sometimes prices and most importantly the
name and nature of product. There are certain tools which we use for this purpose e.g. print
and electronic media. Nowadays advertisement is a common practice and necessary thing if
you want succeed in your business because without communicating the value to the
customers, the businesses cannot compete in competitive environment. Advertisement is an
effective way to create want of your product in front of people. Effective advertisement can
divert the minds of customers and it is an important part of marketing. Advertisement may be
of different types like political advertisement, religious advertisement and commercial
advertisement but our concern is with commercial advertisement.

Ethics in Advertisement:

Ethics has great important in advertisement and it is social responsibility of all the
companies who advertise their product should be ethical in their advertisement. There are few
types of unethical advertisement that are written below.

Deceptive Advertising:

Some Organizations show some features in their products during their advertisements which
actually do not exist in their products, this is a clear case of un-ethical Act in Advertisement.

For Example:

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Ethics in Advertisement

Whenever you see a Car advertisement they Never Show that their Car will increase the
pollution in the air and the car might cause an accident, if not operated properly and may
cause serious damage or even deaths. They only show the luxurious parts and the pleasing
features of their products, same is the case with other products like hamburgers cigarettes etc.

Harmful products:

A big issue related to advertising is the advertisement of Harmful products like cigarettes and
alcohol etc

The organizations show famous personalities smoking their brands so that their followers,
fans of these personalities even if they don’t smoke they start smoking those brands and the
same thing happens with the other such harmful products as well.

The question arises that should these products be advertised by the organizations?

The answer will be No if we consider the Organization to be socially responsible.

Community Standards:

When we talk about the ethical standards in advertising we should highlight the community
standards first of all. We cannot apply a single set of standard about what is right or wrong ,
good or bad and take it as universal standards capable of being applied to all the
communities,

Some Brands Show Nudity in their Advertisements .e.g. DOLCE & GABBANA , ST.IVES
etc, This is an unethical act, although there is no specified law about the community
standards in advertising but still the organizations should keep in sight the moral standards of
that specific area in which they are operating.

Advertisement to Children:

Organizations try to hit children in advertisements because children capture the scene
immediately without any understanding. They hit the psyche of children. Is it ethical to
advertise to children? The answer should be no because children are the leaders of future and
if you change the thinking patterns and minds of children how you can expect good things
from them in future? It should be banned.

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Advertisements on internet:

Although advertisement is not a bad thing but sometimes organizations show advertisements
unethically. They use trogon horses and other malicious programs for this purpose which
divert or change the websites which people try to access and people feel inconvenience. So it
is against the ethics and code of conduct to advertise in this way. Is it ethical?

Subliminal Advertisement:

Many people believed that advertisement agencies secretly convey the hidden messages
through print and electronic media to the customers and customers after watching those ads
act in irrational manners in markets. Some internet sites are doing these types of activities
which are a bad thing and should be controlled.

Literature view
Different people write many articles and give many views about that there should be ethics in
advertisement or not and why the ethics and moral is important .the literature view of some
people are:

1-(Advertising to children: Is it ethical?

By Rebecca a. Clay

September 2000, Vol 31, No. 8

Print version: page 52

http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep00/advertising.aspx)

Rebecca A. Clay who was a psychologist and researched on child, that advertisement to child
is ethical or not. According to him advertisement change the views of child to live and there
behavior. Rebecca said before heavy advertisement when we asked question to what they
wanted to do when they grew up. The Childs replied that they want to be a “nurse’,
“astronaut” or like some other occupation with intrinsic appeal.

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Ethics in Advertisement

But today because of advertisement on child the behavior or thinking of the child is changing.
If today we ask the same question to the different child then their answer is more likely to be
“make money”

According to Kanner this sifts is because of the advertisement on child. Child sees the
advertisement of different things that may be beneficial for them but there are also some
advertisements that have direct effect on the child so that should be stop.

2- (Heller, Leland Dr. “Advertising, Children, and Ethics.” Professional Articles. 1990
http://www.drheller.com/april01.html)

Dr. Leland Heller has written two books and he is specializes in personality disorders and he
has treated over 2000 patients. He said that psychologists are helping advertisement agencies
to create effective advertisements to reduce unethical behaviors e.g. educational toy
advertisements, anti-drug advertisements “don’t drink and drive”. We can create good
personalities through effective advertisements and this is not true that advertisement is only
unethical.

3-(Richards, Jef I. “Advertising Law and Ethics.” About. 29 Nov. 2000

<http://advertising.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm>).

The article “Advertising law and Ethics “talks about all the ethical issues of advertisement
and other problems associated with advertisement like deceptive pricing and advertisement of
harmful or controversial products which are alcohol, tobacco etc. this article also has
bibliography which has many useful links to gather information.

4- (Rubak, Josh. “Ethics in Advertising”. Rubak.Com. August 7, 2001.

http://www.rubak.com/article.cfm?ID=13)

Josh Rubak is the writer of this article. In this article he writes about illegal advertising
methods. He talks about stealing ads space and bait and switch method. It provides
information about illegal actions of advertising agencies and organizations.

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Ethics in Advertisement

Discussions

There are some unethical issue in advertisement which we explain and

disuse below:

In today’s competitive world, many organizations are practicing unethical activities to

increase their productivity and profit without caring for the consequences of their actions.
In order to stay ahead of their competitors, many organizations overlook the moral and
ethical aspects of their actions and their main focus remains on increasing profit and getting
competitive advantage.

Below is the example of Pepsi and Coke unethical advertisement and discussion on it:

Pepsi vs. coke

This time Coca-cola and Pepsi both are famous drink companies of the word. Both are
following the ethics and also involve in social well ware activities all around the word. But if
we go to the history of both they were rivals of each other and always trying to dominate the
carbonate soft drink market. For getting more and more share they were using the unethical
advertisement and trying to show best against each other. In advertisement they were using
print media videos to stay top of each other. Ethics suggest us that we should not ask
anything bad or blame our competitor if we do not have proper prove and it is moral
responsibility of organizations to follow the ethics in business practices.

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Ethics in Advertisement

In this advertisement Pepsi show that the child prefer Pepsi against coke and child have no
value of coke and he love Pepsi and he can do any think to get the cane of Pepsi. In this
advertisement the child is trying to get Pepsi but he did not reach because it is above him so
the child try to get Pepsi, for getting Pepsi cane he buy two Coke cane and by standing on
them he reach to the Pepsi and buy Pepsi.

Discussion:

In this advertisement Pepsi was doing unethical act because coke is his competitor so Pepsi
was try to showing that no one like coke and coke has no value in front of Pepsi. All this
advertisement is totally unethical. According to ethics the Pepsi can make that act but by
using any other thing but it is not ethical to show his competitor coke cheaper than him,
according to ethics every company should avoid to target other company.

In this advertisement we can see the Pepsi was trying to show that we are better than coke.
The straw in Pepsi is enjoying but in coke it is not like even to touch the coke drink.

The ethical issue with this advertisement is that it is right for Pepsi to show that it is best
brand of the world but it is showing that coke is low quality and have not any taste to drink,
no one want to buy. This act is unethical and morally wrong to show its competitor devalue
or de-grade competitor market.

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Ethics in Advertisement

In this advertisement we can see both are targeting each other and showing that both are more
power full than each other. Mean trying to convey massage to the people that their product
have good quality market and taste than the other.

The unethical issue with this advertisement is that both are de-marketing each other product
which has loose to both of these and also it is not ethical to de-market each other.

In this advertisement the Pepsi Company hit the coke. Pepsi Company is showing that coke is
totally copying their products. Pepsi is trying to convey the message that coke is copying
their formula and selling Pepsi product by using their brand name. That is totally unethical
that you hit other product without any prove.

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Ethics in Advertisement

All these Pepsi and coke ads show that they both were using the strategy to de-market or de-
grade each other and showing each other that customer have only value of them.

Now both companies are in contract with each other, that they will not blame each other and
do not make fun or make ads against each other because they are both trying to make good
image of them in front of people as socially responsible organizations. This step is good for
both and also for the society.

Unethical Advertisement of Cellular Companies

There are also some issues of unethical advertisement with different cellular companies
in Pakistan. There are some unethical advertisements of Zong, Ufone, Jazz, Telenor that are
discuses below

U-fone unethical Advertisement

This time in Pakistan, U-fone is the widest and largest cellular company. U-fone in last few
years gives many good packages that are being enjoyed by the people of Pakistan. But ethical
issue this time with Ufone is that in advertisement Ufone is not following ethics Ufone in
many advertisements hit or make fun of his competitor which is totally against ethics. There
are many examples of that the few are below

Unethical Advertisement battle between U-fone and Telenor

There are both companies advertisement and discussion on it:

Telenor advertisement

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Ethics in Advertisement

“ Bus aik naya connection chahiay D-juice ka”.

This statement was said by a very popular female singer which most of you have heard named Annie.
By reading this statement you won’t find anything unethical in it. But who would have thought that it
would start a new battle between the two companies.

U Fone make fun

(U-Fone Advertisement)

“Bas Aik naya Connection Chahiay U-fone ka.. (Laugh)”

This is a very popular advertisement which aired on TV. In this advertisement U-fone made
fun of the Telenor add in which a Telenor ambassador and a very popular singer Annie said
the statement, by copying it in a mocking manner.

It is an unethical marketing practice to degrade your competitor in any way. The following
advertisement by ufone is defaming-Djuice

(D-juice Advertisement)

In this advertisement the Ufone is giving a very good package to its customer that is
beneficial for his customer and also increase its market value but their way of presenting their
package is completely against ethics

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Ethics in Advertisement

In this advertisement the Ufone hitting the Telenor marketing and try to degrade the Telenor
and other companies. Telenor offering d-juice package to his customer that was Telenor best
package so for de valuing Telenor package Ufone hit the d-juice package in his advertisement

“Juice chahay vitamin D ka ho yaa E kaa par jayega pheeka”

Ufone give massage to his customer that d-juice or any other company cannot able to
compete the U fone new packages. It is true that no one is giving packages like Ufone but it is
ethically wrong to degrade other for your own promotion. U fone always have issue to
degrade other market by its advertisement Ufone also try to hit jazz, Zong. Jazz have also last
time take action and also made fun of U fone advertisement so its look like start of brand war
that is only loose able for both customer and company so both should follow the ethics and
do not try to degrade each other.

U-fone vs. Zong

First we will explain the advertisement of Zong and U-fone then we disuses what is unethical
in it.

Zong advertisement:

Mera number 0333-******* aar mera network hai zong kyun me apne har number pe kar skti
hun muft bat har waqt . MEra Number hai 0321-******** arm era network hai zong kyun
keh mei apne har dost se karskti hon bat ar apne friends aur family numbers pay jitney
chahay Lambi bat. Zong pe o ar sab kehdo

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Discussion

In this add Zong conveys massage that their network in best than other and all other network
user is moving toward Zong. But unethical think in this advertisement is Zong is using the
number of other company like u Fone, Telenor. Jazz. And showing that all U fone, Telenor
and jazz customer moving toward Zong.

Ufone Reply:

Mera number hai 0333-|******** aur mera network hai ufone kyun keh mai PAgal Nahi
hooon

Discussion

As we explain in above advertisement that Zong try to give massage to the user that all
customer like Zong and other network costumer also moving to the Zong so U Fone also
replay in unethical way.

U Fone replay we are not mental to change our network because our network is best than any
other and they also hit Zong marketing by said that all that move toward Zong all mental, this
act also unethical.

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Zongs Reply

Number chahy Jo bhi hgo Network hamesha Zong Aur har pagal apnea p ko pagal nahi
kehta...TO apna Number Zong pay loa ar sab kehdo.

Discussion

In this advertisement Zong repay to u Fone that, “pagal apne apko kabi pagal nai kehta”, this
is another unethical act by hitting other companies by saying that Ufone company is insane, a
direct reply to Ufone.

Unethical Cigarette advertisement

A lot of diseases are caused by smoking like lung cancer, mouth cancer etc. The
advertisement of cigarette is unethical because it effect on teenagers because it’s the age
where good nutrition are required for human development and children. The cigarette
advertisement in developing country is ban. But in under developing country there is lot of
cigarette advertisement that is harmful for the society.

The cigarette industry is on the move to expand, for which they are applied for very effective
tactics by using role model personalities in ads directly or indirectly. One example is that the
famous American president Ronald Regan once appeared in an ad promoting cigarettes by

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telling their benefits. But unethical is in that advertisement is that a American president give
massage to his nation that cigarette is good for health but the truth is that it cause many
diseases and also harmful for society and for the child. Children by seeming their hero
impress by them and also do whatever they do.

Field work:

Is ethics are important in advertisement and is unethical advertisement harmful for society?

For knowing the views and opinions of people about ethical and unethical advertisements we
interviewed a number of students of our batch and as well as other students of university of
Gujrat (hafiz hayat campus). The questions and respective answers which we asked during
interview are:

1- Whether ethics should be given importance in advertisement or not?

80% said yes, 15% said No, 5% neutral

2- Can advertisement be harmful to society or not?

25% said yes, 65% said No, 10 neutral

3- Should there be laws to regulate unethical behaviors in advertisement?

85% said yes, 10% said NO, 5% neutral

4- Do ethics of advertisement vary from culture (country) to culture (country)?

50% said Yes, 45% said No, 5% neutral

5- Does deceptive advertisement exist?

90% said yes, 10% said No, 0% neutral

Analysis of answers of first 5 Questions:

The results of answers of questions show that most of the students think that ethics are
important for advertisement, only a little no. of students think that ethics are not so much
important for advertisement. Most of the people think that unethical advertisements are not so
much harmful for society because advertisements are not creating real damage to society.
According to few people all the act that different companies do only for the beneficial for the

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customer and tell the reality of the competitor so all the action ethical or unethical are not
harmful for society and are the well interest of the customer People have no clear idea about
variance in ethics of advertisement in different cultures so that was the reason that 50% said
Yes and 45% said No. 90% people think deceptive advertisement exists and its unethical to
claim those benefits and features of product which in reality have no concern with product.

The 6th question was an open ended question and we gave free will to the students to act in
any way, the question was:

6- What are your personal experiences of deceptive advertisement?

Because it was an open ended question so different students show different responses and the
responses of two students was:

I. Usman Hameed said:

He saw a juice advertisement and bought it but the juice was not that delicious as it
was shown in advertisement.

II. Abdul Rehman said:

I bought Cheeta shoes from service shop after watching Shahid Afridi’s add, but the
shoes were not of that quality in term of durability and comfort ability as was shown.
Some students was not willing to share their experience but most of the people said
that they was become the victim of deceptive advertisement and there should be some
strict laws to prevent this cheating.
III. Awais Latif said:
My father was impressed by HBL limited scheme of get car on easy installment
package. When my father sign agreement with bank, so they charged many hidden
charges that they did not shown in their advertisement.

Conclusion:

Now a day advertisements are very important for businesses because organizations can’t
deliver the value to the customers without advertisements but unethical advertisements also
are not good for society. Advertisement is a vital part of marketing now days and is most
important for offering products and services. Corporations engage themselves in
advertisements wars and sometimes they totally ignore ethics just to capture more and more

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market share and profit. Unethical advertisements affect psychologically and mentally the
people. Unethical standards prevail in society. They all talk about effect of unethical
advertisement on children, teenagers and society. Children mostly affect by this.
Advertisement to children has bad affect on the nature and thinking patterns of children
because children capture the scene and can’t understand the psyche behind the advertisement.
Advertisement of harmful and controversial products also affect badly the society, e.g. many
people who dislike smoking when see celebrities or other famous personalities smoking, they
started smoking. Companies try to de-grade each other which is even harmful for both parties
and for society. Shortly speaking, unethical advertisements are not good for society so these
should be banned and should be ethical. Some advertisements are also against the moral
standards of society and against the cultural values of society which create negative responses
among masses especially in teenagers. People adopt bad things and values which are contrary
to their culture which is a bad sign. The results of our experimental research also show that
deceptive advertisement is really a bad thing; organizations cheat the customers through
deceptive advertisement which is even harmful for them because the customers never buy
that brand or product in future. To know what student think about advertisement me
interviews some students. Most of the Students think that there should be rules and
regulations to regulate advertisement and actions should be taken against unethical behaviors
and We can’t neglect the importance of advertisement but we can’t accept unethical standards
and cheating in advertisement. some student think that ethics in advertisement have no
important because the main purpose of advertisement to sell different product or services, for
that company can make any type of ads.. Now a day children try to act according to the
scenes advertisements without realizing the rightness or wrongness of that action. Many
companies are doing unethical act to sell their product like cellular companies. Most of the
cellular companies are try to sale their product by de-grate its competitor. At last we can say
that ethics have great important in advertisement and all companies that are advertising
should be show ethical and moral and not make advertisement that are harmful for society as
well as influence children behavior.

Recommendations:

It is strongly recommended that there should be some rules for advertisements. Laws should
be made by parliament and should be enforced by law and enforcement agencies. So it is the
duty of governments to make laws against unethical behaviors in advertisement. The

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organizations which claim that they are socially responsible and working for the benefits of
the society as well, they should also adopt ethical values in their advertisements as well and
should spoke against unethical advertisements.

Electronic and print media which are mostly used for advertisement purposes should also do
their part in this regard. They should not broadcast or print unethical advertisements and
should prove themselves as socially responsible as well. Competitors should also sign some
agreements and should develop some standards and should agree on some terms and
conditions that they will not de-grade each other because it is harmful for themselves and also
for society .products which are harmful or which are controversial, advertisement of those
products should be banned because advertisements psychologically affect children and the
older people as well. In advertisements, the organizations should not make fun of other
brands. In some advertisements, celebrities or famous personalities are used which often
becomes the part of some unethical advertisement so those personalities should also take care
of ethics. Advertisement to children should be controlled and limited and government should
also do legislation to prevent children from unethical advertisements because children often
took scene in his mind instead of the hidden meanings attached with that advertisement.
Some organizations try to cheat their customers through deceptive advertisement and
deceptive pricing so there should also some strict rules against this type of unethical
behavior. We should also boycott this type of organizations.

At last I will recommend that all of us (media, corporations, government, judiciary, public
and law and enforcement agencies) should speak against unethical behaviors in
advertisement. Media or organizations are not fully responsible for that because they show
what we want to see, if we stop liking unethical advertisements and unethical things, they
will automatically realize this and will try to be socially responsible even in advertisements.
There should be a strong mechanism to handle advertisement issues and the mechanism
should be independent and should work independently for this purpose. We have to think
carefully about this issue and try to enforce ethics on media and advertisement agencies as
well as on businesses through laws which is the need & demand of this century.

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Bibliography
http://issuesinimc.wikispaces.com/Ethical+issues+in+Advertising

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/documents/rc_pc_pccs_doc_220
21997_ethics-in-ad_en.html

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(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAP2yVsgI6c

http://advertising.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm

http://www.rubak.com/article.cfm?ID=13.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/asr/v008/8.3unit13.html

http://www.insaf.pk/Forum/tabid/53/forumid/2/postid/11368/view/topic/Default.aspx

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(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAP2yVsgI6c

http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep00/advertising.aspx)

http://www.drheller.com/april01.html

<http://advertising.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm>).

http://www.rubak.com/article.cfm?ID=13)

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAP2yVsgI6c

http://issuesinimc.wikispaces.com/Ethical+issues+in+Advertising

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/documents/rc_pc_pccs_doc_220
21997_ethics-in-ad_en.html

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/battle-of-the-brands-pepsi-vs-coke-advertisements/

http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/speaker_pres/data/3001

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