Ethics is a set of moral principles which regulates a person’s behavior or how the activity is conducted. Ethics in advertising is a set of moral principles which regulates communicates between seller and consumer (Prachi Juneja). Developing and implementing a guideline of ethics for advertising is essential for the business because it can not only protect the brand image, it can also show that the company cares about the consumer’s needs.
Since I took a Business Ethics course at RIT, my boss has requested me to construct a set of guidelines for ethical advertising. I have listed 3 guidelines that can be essential for our company below. Examples of advertisements that follows or violates each of the following guidelines are included.
Guideline #1: Objectification of Women is not allowed.
At our company, we will not objectify women in our advertisements. We want to ensure the safety and self-esteem of our female consumers.
This is an important guideline because we want to ensure that our advertisements do not harm consumers in anyway. We want our company to be diverse and include everyone – consumers and coworkers. We have a social responsibility of not offending consumers when advertising a product or service.
The underlying basis for this guideline is inclusion and diversity. It is very degrading and offensive to women if advertisements objectify women as sexual objects. We want to get rid of the stereotypes that labels women, people of color or anyone. The country becoming more diverse every day so many companies have a workplace that may be diverse and encourages diversity. With that being said, many women are becoming more included and hold a higher position in a company which is great. Our company treats everyone equally and include them in the company.
Example of an ad that follows the guideline: This Girl Can – What about you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsP0W7-tEOc&feature=share
This advertisement is a perfect example that follows the guideline of not objectifying women. This ad is to destroy to stereotypes about women. It shows them doing what they love – staying active, and opens viewers mind about women’s body images. Showing body images like curvy, fat, skinny changes the perceptions of women and encourages viewers to be acceptable of who and how women are. It helps raise their self-esteem and does not harm women at all. It proves that women are not sexual objects.
Example of an ad that violates the guideline: Estrella Insurance
This advertisement is pretty straightforward. “No one drops them like we do” next to a image of woman’s legs with her shorts at her ankles definitely portrays women as a sexual object. This is a stereotype of women that they’re ‘easy’ to get with – emphasizing that women drop their pants for sex which is shaming for them. They have also designed a few other ads where it sexualizes women. They could’ve found a better way to advertise their insurance instead of objectifying women. This violates the guideline because it harms how women are perceived in public as well as lowering their self-esteem.
Guideline #2: Accurate and Truthful Advertisements.
Our company does not tolerate misleading advertisements or disclosing untruthful messages in the advertisements.
The reason why this is important is that it protects the consumers’ needs of staying informed with accurate information. Consumers rely on the company and expects us to provide honest information in the advertisement. This guideline protects the consumers’ need of accurate information.
Not only is it unethical to disclose untruthful messages, it is also illegal according to the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC regulates the communications and protects consumers’ by stopping unfair, fraud or deceptive practices in the market. The underlying basis for this guideline is the establishment of trust between the company and consumer through the truth in advertisements. The consumer must be aware of all features of the product or service so they can purchase it (or not) without doubt. Consumers want to purchase a product or service with confidence based on the information exposed in the advertisement.
Example of an ad that follows the guideline: Avis
The advertisement by Avis followed the guideline of being honest. The ad was created in 1962 and they were struggling being the leader in the auto rental market. They bluntly informed the consumers of the market placement (#2) of their brand in the advertisement. The advertisement showed brand authenticity and honesty of Avis. They did not hide the fact that they were not the leader of the market.
Example of an ad that violates the guideline: Rice Krispies
The advertisement for Rice Krispies by Kellogg’s violates the guideline of being truthful and accurate in their advertisement. They revealed on their cereal box packaging that it ‘helps boost your child’s immunity’ which it clearly does not. However, according to FTC, it was their second time having to take action to Kellogg’s due to misleading claims that their cereal improves children’s health. They did not provide truthful messages for the parents who cares about their child’s health. The claims resulted in Kellogg’s prohibition of “making claims about any health benefit of any food unless the claims are backed by scientific evidence and not misleading” (FTC).
Guideline #3: Transparency of Influencers.
Our company will ensure that the social media influencers who promote our product or service in their social media accounts to disclose if they were paid. We will also ask them to add #sponsored, #ad, or #paid, as well as mentioning in their posts – “Sponsored by…” or “Paid for by…” (Grin).
This guideline is important because again, we want to protect the consumers’ need to be informed of all and accurate information for purchase. It’s important that they know social influencers are being paid so they can trust the brand. If influencers don’t mention they were paid, they are trying to convince the viewers that their product or service is real, and the information provided is accurate and and true. We want to ensure that our consumers are 100% satisfied with the product or service by being true and honest about who we pay to promote for us on their social media accounts. We expect our influencers to do the same by disclosing they were paid to promote the product or service and provided true opinions about the product or service
The underlying basis of the guideline is that social media is booming today. There has been huge technological advancements in the last 15 years. Many people use social media or the Internet and that number is still increasing today. The use of Influencer marketing is increasing as well and the company can benefit from this use. Since there has been an increase in social media usage, there is a huge audience who we can target easily – Millennials (18 to 34 years old). So ensuring influencers mention they were paid for the promotion helps consumers be more confident when purchasing a product or service.
This guideline is also enforced by FTC where they require influencers and companies to disclose their paid relationship for the promotion.
Example of an ad that follows the guideline: Rookie Humans
As you can see in this ad, there is #sponsored in the caption. She strictly discloses that her post was sponsored. She also expresses her opinion on the sheet she purchased for her baby. This lets the consumers know that she was being paid to promote the product on her social media page which follows the guideline.
Example of an ad that violates the guideline: Frye Festival
This Instagram post was posted by Kendall Jenner to promote Fyre Festival. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, Kendall Jenner and many other influencers including supermodels (e.g Bella Hadid) were paid to post about Fyre Festival to get people to purchase tickets. There is nothing in the post that discloses she was getting paid to advertise Fyre Festival. People did not know that these influencers were getting paid until it was too late where the outcome of the Festival was not what consumers expected. Let’s just say that it wasn’t as ‘luxurious’ as the creators of the festival advertised. It violates the guideline because it did not disclose she was getting paid for the ad. She should’ve added #sponsored or #ad so the viewers were aware when deciding to purchase.
Take a look at this article by Business Insider to see “Fyre Festival expectations vs. realities” https://www.businessinsider.com/fyre-festival-expectations-vs-reality-2017-5
Overall, developing and implementing an ethical guideline for advertising is essential for the company AND society. It protects the consumers’ need to be informed of all and accurate information, their self-esteem, and their images. For the company it protects the brand’s image and satisfies our duty of social responsibility and ethical beliefs.
Thank you for reading! 🙂
Sources/Links
https://www.managementstudyguide.com/advertising-ethics.htm
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2010/06/ftc-investigation-ad-claims-rice-krispies-benefits-childrens
https://www.grin.co/blog/ftc-rules-for-influencers
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/04/ftc-staff-reminds-influencers-brands-clearly-disclose
https://influencermarketinghub.com/no-fyre-festival-wasnt-an-influencer-marketing-success-and-other-lessons-from-a-disaster/
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