Advertisements are a part of our everyday lives. They are placed at every legally imaginable place possible by companies, governments, and other interested organizations to get our attention. Can you imagine the Super Bowl without its world-famous commercial breaks, or our highways without their towering billboards? The truth is that this medium of business promotion is here to stay. However, there have been many concerns about how this medium is used and how it influences our lives. Businesses have become so aggressive that they have begun to abuse this channel. This has raised moral concerns and led to the question of how much regulation is needed so as to keep these money-hungry corporations in check.
In order to understand the moral issues associated with advertising, we must first understand what it is and how it works. Advertising is hard to define. Legal and statutory definitions put it as “a paid form of the message disseminated by businesses……..specifically and systematically designed to influence the attitudes and decisions of individuals in relation to their consumption of goods and their use of services” (Agcm. it). The use of advertising, however, is easier to state. Their core function is to sell a good, service, or product to a targeted audience (MacRury, 1). The main users of advertising are the business world. However, other parties such as the government and NGOs use it too. In general, advertisements are used to pass across a message which influences an individual to take a certain course of action.
Advertisements have evolved in complexity and creativity throughout the years. This is mainly due to the immense amount of research that has gone into it. According to Vakratsas and Ambler, advertising works in several stages. The first stage is the delivery of the message. This message may be repeated for more effect. At the second stage, some form of mental effect happens. The mental effect includes knowledge, recollection, and the person’s outlook of the message. This affects the way a person thinks and feels toward the product. The end product is a purchase (1-2). The process goes to show that advertising exploits the use of attitude and association. Whoever the message is delivered to must relate the product to a positive experience, thought or aspiration that they have in order for a positive end result to happen. This means that an advertiser will seek to create an advert that will do this in order to be successful in his end goal, to sell. So what is to stop an advertiser from exploiting this for his own end? What is to stop him from making false claims about what his product can do? If some form of regulation is not applied, or even an overhaul of the system as it now does not happen, what is to say that the process will not be abused to get people doing things that they would not normally do? Or even get us to do activities that are not beneficial and morally questionable?
The first line that advertising crosses is the sex line. It is common knowledge that sex sells. Advertisers have taken this notion and gone overboard with it. Products are now highly sexualized. This has happened even on ridiculous levels where products that are not remotely sexual are marketed with sexual undertones. For example, Taflinger notes an example where an advert for car grease is advertised using a woman’s cleavage. In all honesty, what does grease have to do with cleavage? Yet an advert will unquestionably use this basic instinct to attract attention to their advertisement. The effects are seemingly obvious. With this kind of flaunting of sexuality all over the screen, we have seen an increase in sexual activity within our society. From children, teens to adults, a higher level of sexuality have been noted due to increased exposure to sexual content. The fact that we have embraced this display of sexuality does not make the effects any less grave. In fact, Taflinger warns that the use of sex is a double-edged sword that benefits the salesman, but harms society. Sexual adverts in general suggest to the target that if they get the product they have, then they can be more sexually appealing (Taflinger). This lie extends to products that have no association with sex, like car grease! By exploiting a very strong emotional appeal, the desire to be more sexually attractive, the advert pulls in people to buy.
Secondly, adverts only seek to increase the extent of spending that we have. Garey notes with concern that the extent of advertising influences our spending culture. Being bombarded daily by messages that encourage us to spend more and more has caused our society to consume, even products that we do not need. It is common knowledge that one of the causes of the recent economic recession was large consumption. I blame advertising. If the masses are not clever enough to figure out what is important and what is not, then they fall victim. Garey states that being surrounded by these adverts more and more causes one’s sensibility to decrease as we are psychologically pressured to buy. We, therefore, need regulation for advertising that reduces their cluttering effect thus giving us back our sanity to make rational decisions. The pressure to buy and spend is immense, and if by reducing the number of advertisements then we can gain a footing on our personal budget is possible, then we should do it. Mindless spending is why we have so much credit card debt, low savings, and an economy on its knees.
The madness does not only target the adults, it also targets the children. Psychologists note with concern that the new generation of children does not believe in happiness without the purchase of specific products. This is because of the advertising frequency and tactics applied to children (Clay, 52). We have on our hands a younger generation already growing in a consumerism culture. The children are taught through adverts that happiness is brought by owning the latest gadget or toy.
Apart from consuming goods, it also affects how they consume food. Child adverts are made to be extremely appealing. Targeting children makes it possible for brands to create brand loyalty at a young age. The children are lured through an array of highly attractive methods. While the brands make creative adverts that make them money, children are becoming obese at an increasingly early age (Reed). In this scenario, the child is made to crave unhealthy food while the corporates make money at their expense. This is totally immoral. The child does not know what is healthy and what isn’t (Reed). He or she does not understand the long-term effects of eating tasty burgers and candy bars. All they know is that they look good in the advert and he or she must have them. The child, later on, gains weight and faces health and social problems.
In summary, children are targeted because they make an easy target. They are highly influenced and create good brand loyalty. The corporate target this and get them to buy unhealthy foods and unnecessary gadgets. The immorality here is obvious. There is a need to strictly control what children watch so as to influence how they think.
Advertising has brought more harm than good. It has enslaved us to a consumer culture where we buy what we do not need. It has lied to us that when we buy we will get some sort of emotional satisfaction or fulfillment. When we buy, we find that the satisfaction that was promised does not exist. However, we are again pushed to buy more. The younger generation has been hooked to this lie too. As a result, they have ended up attaching happiness to new toys and equipment. They have developed bad eating habits since they have been attracted to the tasty but unhealthy foods flashed in adverts. We need to have this regulated. Lying through associative psychology needs to be outlawed. Advertisers need to be made to be responsible in their advertising so that in the end as they benefit, society also benefits. By regulation of this out-of-control industry, we will solve many social ills that now affect us.
References
“AGCM_The statutory definition of advertising.” AGCM. Web. 2010.
Clay, Rebecca. “Advertising to children: Is it ethical?.” Apa.org. 2000. Web.
Garey, Stephen. “Brands R Us: How Advertising Works.” Center for Media Literacy. Web. 2010.
MacRury, Iain. Advertising. Illlustrated. Routledge, 2009. Print.
Reed, Michael. “The Ethics of Food Advertising on Children.” Healthmad. 2008. Web.
Taflinger, Richard. “You and Me, Babe: Sex and Advertising.” WSU.edu. 1996. Web.
Vakratsas, Demetrios, and Tim Ambler. “How Advertising Works: What Do We Really Know?.” The Journal of Marketing 63.1 (1999): 26-43. Print.