Advertising plays a significant role in modern society and it is steadily increasing in the business world having a massive influence everywhere. Just as social communication media has a great influence almost all over so does advertising since it uses the media as a very persuasive vehicle having a powerful force in shaping the behaviors and the attitudes of the consumers. Advertising can have both negative and positive contributions that could affect the moral and ethical perspectives of the people. Advertising has a great impact on the consumers as it influences their perceptions about life themselves and the world at large. (David, 1987).
It also influences their values and their choices as well as their behaviors. Ethics on the other hand plays a very significant role in advertising since it focuses on the cultures of the advertising agencies in addition to the personal and the professional identities of those individuals working within them. Ethics plays a very important role in advertising by maintaining human dignity, creating truthfulness in advertising, and also creates a social responsibility. (Fred, 1990).
Truthfulness in advertising
Some of the advertisements done are deliberately or simply untrue. The problem of truth in advertising is more subtle and it is not that what is said in advertising is blatantly false but the fact that the truth can be distorted by making an implication of things that do not hold relevant facts. Ethics in advertising ensures that any advertisements done are communicated with honesty and truthfulness especially where some symbolic and rhetorical exaggeration is used.
Ethics also ensure that the people are not deceived through implication or reality since they have the right to proper information which demands that the content of that which is communicated be true and within the set, limits laid down. Also when ethics is applied in advertising it helps in avoiding situations that manipulate the truth for any reason in any way. (Ronald, 1991).
Dignity of human beings
There is a requirement that advertising should hold a lot of respect for human beings. Ethics in advertising ensures that people are given their rightful duty in making responsible choices and their interior freedom is not violated and their capacity in reflecting and deciding is not compromised at all. The advertising violation of the dignity of human beings is not a mere hypothetical possibility but is a reality that is having a frequent recurrence. (Ronald, 1991).
On the other hand, ethics also ensures that the dignity of human beings is not violated through the advertising content according to how it is advertised and what is contained in the advertisement, and the impact it seeks to make on its audience. Such advertisements with content appealing to vanity, greed, lust, and envy are controlled when ethics is applied since such techniques seek to exploit and manipulate human weaknesses. (Rick, 1991).
When ethics is considered in advertising it controls advertisements so that they do not become vehicles of an outlook of life that is deformed affecting the family on morality and religious grounds which does not respect the dignity and the destiny of the human beings. When advertising is not ethically checked it acutely affects individuals from particularly vulnerable groups, such as the young people and the children, the poor, the elderly, and those that are disadvantaged culturally. Similarly, when ethical values are adopted during advertising there would be no intrusion upon the child-parent relationship seeking to manipulate it because of advertisements that offend the rights and dignity of both the parents and the children. Ethical values applied in advertising protect those that are disadvantaged culturally and the elderly from advertisements that are specifically designed and directed to them causing them fear and persuading them to allocate their limited resources to services and goods of dubious value.
Social responsibility
When proper ethics are applied in advertising, there is a certainty that public morality and the progress socially will not be gravely endangered in any way through the misuse of the media services. In social circles ethics is equally important in advertising since it assists in controlling advertisements that reduce human progress to acquire material goods cultivating lavish lifestyles and thereby destroying the vision of the human being. Advertisers must practice respect for moral spiritual and cultural requirements that are based on the dignity of human beings and the proper identity of the community at large.
Advertisers that apply the proper ethics play an important duty in fostering and expressing a reliable vision of human development in its spiritual, cultural, and material dimensions. Any form of communication from the advertisers that meets the above standards is a true expression of solidarity which is a consequence of right and genuine communication and also the open circulation of ideas which promotes knowledge and respect for other people. (Patrick, 1991).
Maintaining a proper conscience
The advertising industry should always apply ethically correct behavior that will help them form responsible consciences in their advertising professions. Their consciences guided by the proper ethics should make them sensitive to their duty and not merely just to serve the interests of all those that commission and finance any of their works. They should also uphold and respect the rights and the interests of their audiences and serve the common good. Ethics is also important in advertising since it ensures that those who are professionally engaged in advertising do have very sensitive consciences and they also maintain a strong sense of responsibility that is equally high.
Even in situations where they receive pressure from the external forces i.e. clients who commission their work as well as their competitors; they can still maintain ethical behavior. This on the other hand underlies the need for the external systems and structures to fully support and encourage practices that are responsible for advertising at the same time discouraging any irresponsible practices in the same field.
In conclusion, the authorities concerned in regulating the advertising content should extend beyond the banning of false advertisements and further address the issues of the quantity of advertising in the media as well as the content directed to different groups especially those vulnerable to exploitation. However, where the freedom of speech and communication exists, it is largely upon the advertisers to ensure that there is ethical responsibility in their professional practices. (Pascal, 1992).
Ethics also helps the advertisers to undertake and repair the harm that might sometimes have been done by advertising. They could do this by publishing corrective notices or even through compensating the parties that are injured. Ethically upright advertisers might always be ready for personal injury and loss rather than do what is wrong and unacceptable in society.
References
Pascal, Z (1992): Many Journalists See a Growing Reluctance To Criticize Advertisers, The Wall Street Journal. Pg 33-67.
Patrick, M. (1991): Advocacy Group Boycotting of Network Television Advertisers and Its Effects on Programming Content, University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Pgs 647-709.
Rick, D (1991): When Does TV Cross the Line?; Censorship vs. Good Taste – The debate continues as the networks get pressed tighter in the Iron Triangle of viewers, advertisers and the folks who create those prime-time shows, Los Angeles Times, pgs 30 -37.
Ronald, P (1991): Advocacy Groups and Television Advertisers. Journal of Advertising, pgs 18-29.
Fred, D (1990). This wall must stay; Editors shouldn’t be censors of ads, Advertising Age, pg 22.
David, S (1987): Credibility vs. Sensitivity, High Thick Wall Divides Editors and Advertisers. Los Angeles Times, pgs 34-54.