Ethics in advertising and promotion

Ethical pitfalls in advertising and promotional content include:

Issues over truth and honesty. In the 1940s and 1950s, tobacco used to be advertised as promoting health.[20] Today an advertiser who fails to tell the truth not only offends against morality but also against the law. However the law permits "puffery" (a legal term).[21] The difference between mere puffery and fraud is a slippery slope: "The problem... is the slippery slope by which variations on puffery can descend fairly quickly to lies."[22] See main article: false advertising. Issues with violence, sex and profanity. Sexual innuendo is a mainstay of advertising content (see sex in advertising), and yet is also regarded as a form of sexual harassment.[23]Violence is an issue especially for children's advertising and advertising likely to be seen by children.

Taste and controversy. The advertising of certain products may strongly offend some people while being in the interests of others. Examples include: feminine hygiene products,hemorrhoid and constipation medication.[24] The advertising of condoms has become acceptable in the interests of AIDSprevention, but are nevertheless seen by some as promotingpromiscuity. Some companies have actually marketed themselves on the basis of controversial advertising - see Benetton. Sony has also frequently attracted criticism for unethical content (portrayals of Jesus which infuriated religious groups; racial innuendo in marketing black and white versions of its PSP product; graffiti adverts in major US cities).
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Negative advertising techniques, such as attack ads. In negative advertising, the advertiser highlights the disadvantages of competitor products rather than the advantages of their own. The methods are most familiar from the political sphere: see negative campaigning.

]The use of ethics as a marketing tactic

Business ethics has been an increasing concern among larger companies, at least since the 1990s. Major corporations increasingly fear the damage to
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their image associated with press revelations of unethical practices. Marketers have been among the fastest to perceive the market's preference for ethical companies, often moving faster to take advantage of this shift in consumer taste. This results in the expropriation of ethics itself as a selling point or a component of a corporate image.

The Body Shop is an example of a company which marketed itself and its entire product range solely on an ethical message. Greenwash is an example of a strategy used to make a company appear ethical when its unethical practices continue.

Should large companies maintain high ethical standards?

When you walk into a local store - not one of the big chains but, a store established by someone who lives and works in the community, it is usually a store that relies on word of mouth advertising, not TV, radio, newspaper and billboard ads. The kind of place your friend sends you. For them, ethics is a big element in their working philosophy. Relying on word-ofmouth advertising requires a business person to ensure high customer satisfaction and a great part of this is how they deal with problems in an ethical manner. But when a company gets to a certain size where TV, radio, magazine and newspaper ads are very much in their methodology to attract new customers, do they need to worry about the occasional customer complaint? Can their size and advertising budget quash any consumer concerns? Can they lower their ethics to maximize their profit? I know of two companies that have used unethical practices to further their business situation and the facts to prove it. What you are about to read is FACT, undisputed and on record and therefore all the worse for it actually happening. Mattamy Homes, a large house building corporation has made a North American reputation for building quality homes. Yes, I must say most of their homes are built in a professional manner. They are even advancing forward thinking assembly line construction in large factories on-site. But, they sold a house without electrical power. They even illegally (code) wired the furnace to an unoccupied house next door and had a Town
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of Oakville inspector pass this, even though his director is on file stating they would not issue an occupancy permit to a house in such condition. Why did they do this? Can it be that without the furnace working, they could not legally close the sale? Would you consider this an ethical way to do business? But then, Mattamy Homes has a large advertising budget and they donate millions to Town of Oakville projects and to other jurisdictions. They supply free bus service in the Town of Milton. Now, how does one fight city hall and Mattamy Homes when faced with this type of business practice? You don't and both know that if they keep quiet, this kind of problem drifts away. Poor ethics win. Now, Ford Motor Company has built an advertised reputation for quality and customer care. Did you know that they built F150 trucks with a built in problem of leaking front windows? They built a certain number of these trucks without properly sealing the window. Over time (usually after warranty) these windows work loose and start to leak into the interior. These leaks hit the fuse box and other electronics, causing these features to fail. Of course, the shorted out electronics are replaced but no one fixes the window why would they especially when they don't know the failures are caused by water leakage. Did Ford do a recall, put out a public notice or warn garages? They might have put out a dealer bulletin but other than that, nothing to my knowledge. Their response to this is to fix the damage and then charge you. They might draw attention to your window and direct you to someone else to fix it. Now, if you frequent a local garage, they probably don't know about the problem and just replace the shorted parts. Is this an ethical way to do business? Building in a problem into the vehicle, repairing the damaged parts but not letting people know how to permanently fix the problem until after thousands of dollars are spent. Would you call that ethical? Now, Toyota has recognized it has a rust perforation problem on its 1995-2000 model trucks. All off warranty and no responsibility if they follow the Ford ethical model but, they go the extra customer mile by following a higher level of ethics than Ford. They
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will either fix the problem or buy back the truck. No rust problem found they will extend the warranty 15 years. Both advertise quality and customer care but who follows what they preach? According to Ford's ads, they do. If a local business person followed these two examples, they would find their word-of-mouth business would lose customers over time. They would probably have to close up shop and move, unless they changed their attitude. What do the corporations do when faced with ethics? Increase their advertising to attract those lost. And what really hurts is that the local newspapers rely on that advertising and they will probably not print these stories. Yes, local government scandals, poor police judgement and other misfortunes will be printed but do a story on an advertiser's poor ethics that is poor business and just as unethical as Ford and Mattamy Homes.

3of 7 Yes by Polo Maldonado-Martine

Ethics and morals are very different in approach. In terms of ethics, we need to determine what benefit is the company proposing to the public, to the society and customers. A company has as its intent to survive at all costs, but it has to do it through the delivery of products benefit ting people. What if the products are destructive? What if they have to do something about them, like withdrawing them from the market? See http://www.oralchelation.net/d ata/Lilly/data6.htm#p2 for the adverse effects of Prozac in order to understand why large companies should maintain high ethical standards, Abnormal ejaculation, abnormal gait, abnormal stoppage of menstrual flow, acne, amnesia, apathy, arthritis, asthma, belching, bone pain, breast, cysts,breast pain, brief loss of consciousness, bursitis, chills and fever, conjunctivitis, convulsions, dark tarry stool, difficulty in swallowing, dilation of pupils, dimness of vision, dry skin, ear pain, exaggerated feeling of well-being, excessive bleeding, facial swelling due to fluid retention, fluid retention, hair loss, hallucinations, hangover effect, hiccups, high or low blood pressure, hives, hostility, impotence, increased sex drive, inflammation of the: esophagus, gums, stomach lining, tongue, and vagina, intolerance of light, involuntary movement, irrational ideas, irregular heartbeat, jaw or neck pain, lack of muscle coordination, low blood pressure upon standing, low blood sugar, migraine headache, mouth inflammation, neck pain and rigidity, nosebleed, ovarial disorders, paranoid reaction, pelvic pain, pneumonia, rapid breathing, rapid heartbeat, ringing in the ears, severe chest pain, skin inflammation, skin rash, thirst, twitching, uncoordinated movements, urinary disorders, vague feeling of bodily discomfort, vertigo, weight gain.
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Does that answer the question? I do believe so. This sale of prozac is not rational, it is not ethical and of course, it might seem moral from the point of view of a moral code dedicated to gathering money at any and all costs. Since it is not beneficial, then we could say it is not ethical even if it is legal or moral from another point of view. The main reason for these ethical standards has to do with the survival of the company and its reputation. Greed is no substitute for good reputation. Currently, pharmaceutical companies are losing money for such practices as the above. They are doomed, going broke. We could extrapolate to any company in the world. It would be a nice exercise.

I have come to this conclusion about outsourcing; through an unfortunate and rude awakening, this reporter has discovered that as hard as overseas manufactures and service providers may try, their products are inferior to domestically manufactured goods and services. 5of 7 Yes by Thomas Emmon Pisano

Printer papers, which fail archival durability tests, are imported and competing with American made paper such as Kodak paper, which is an excellent printer paper for archival purposes, whereas it's overseas equivalents are dull and manufactured poorly, not able to withstand the test of time. In the same venue, toilet papers manufactured in China, do not meet our plumbing standards, it does not dissolve properly, clogging our plumbing and fouling our septic tanks, thus causing us millions in unnecessary repair bills every year. This fact that most foreign products are either inferior or sub-standard is apparent in some imported automotive products such as car batteries. Automobile batteries manufactured in China find it difficult to withstand
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some of our more severe weather conditions, such as the summers we have in Arizona, American car batteries seem to hold up better under those harsh conditions than their Chinese competitors. Also in the area of semiconductor diodes for automobile alternators, they seem to lack the endurance necessary to survive the natural climatic extremes found in our nation's weather. Chinese alternators when subjected to extremes in climate do not stand up to extremely low or high temperatures, which affect the rectifier diodes in these low-grade alternators. As a rule, American alternator manufactures use more substantial material when creating their diodes and they also use better heat sinking to protect these devices from those extremes in heat. 7of 7 Yes by LTA Mattel is one of the toy manufacturers who have recently faced two instances of product safety concerns with its customers. There was one instance where lead paint content was found on toys subcontracted to a Chinese company. The Chinese company then subcontracted out the painting of the toys and that subcontractor chose to not use the specified paint; Instead, they used paint that contained potentially poisonous lead (Palmeri, 2007). There was no unethical action on Mattel's part of the issue and Mattel has since gone from random testing of the toys, to testing every toy they market and sell (Palmeri, 2007). The second instance of product safety concern was centered on a magnetic toy from the Polly Pocket, Batman and Doggie Daycare collection. Even though Mattel ran tests believed to support safety guidelines, they failed to determine that if two magnets were swallowed at the same time they could cause problems inside the intestines by closing them off, with a diagnosis that can be fatal. They have ethically recalled the toys and have redesigned the new version of this toy so the magnets will not separate from the toy (Palmeri, 2007). James Industries, Inc. is the manufacturer of the popular known Slinky toys. In 1989, the company showed how committed it was to its customers by being proactive in a voluntary recalling of toys after a safety and health issue was internally determined. There were seven specific toys; Slinky Train, Dalmatian and Caterpillar were among the seven, in which the red paint on the faces was found to contain lead in a higher percentage rate allowable with Consumer Product Safety No 1of 1 by Robert Bragaw
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Too often we tend to look at the conflict between good and evil in absolute terms. She is good. He is evil. That company is socially responsible. This company is corrupt. The truth is that the conflict between good and evil is played out within each individual and each corporation continuously. There are elements of both the sacred and the profane in every person and every corporation. Corporations are even more complex because they are collections of individuals with varying degrees of influence, within each of whom the battle for the soul is waged every minute of every hour of every day. In looking at corporations, it is important to realize that corporate existence is value neutral. There are no "good" corporations. There are no "evil" corporations. Good and evil are only useful adjectives when they are used to describe behavior in terms of some common frame of reference. Corporations, or more accurately the officers, employees, directors and agents of a corporation (collectively, the "Members") may behave in a good or evil way, even conduct themselves according to a good or evil pattern of behavior, which is then ascribed to the corporation. The idea that corporations can develop ethical standards that are unique subsets of overarching societal ethical standards is flawed. Corporations face pressure from the government to promote diversity within their workforce. Large corporations are diverse by the nature of their widespread geographical dispersion. The ethical standards established by a corporate board of directors in New York are unlikely to resonate with the branch office in El Paso, TX, with the foreign subsidiary in Vancouver, B.C., or with a supplier in the Philippines or Indonesia. Corporate ethics is largely a misnomer applied to corporate legal obligations related to governance, disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and compliance with various workforce statutes ranging from the OSHA guidelines to the National Labor Relations Act to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Because ethics deals with what is right rather than merely with what is legal, and because what is right is large dependent on the facts of a particular situation, corporate ethics become either meaningless (i.e., easily explained away based on exigent

circumstances) or legalistic (i.e., whatever is not illegal is not unethical). Corporate ethics might have more meaning if it were used to define hiring practices to encourage selection of employees with highly developed, wellreasoned personal philosophies; however, the ability of most recruiters to identify such individuals, while at the same time finding someone with the hard skills or experience required for a given position, make it unlikely that any such practice by a corporation were given more than lip service. In the end, corporate ethics is a warm, fuzzy concept that exists to support rationalizations against corporate regulation by elected officials. Only people have the ability to act ethically or not. And, only the society in which a person lives is capable of defining the ethical mores to which any individual will be subject. Corporations are merely vessels established to collectively hold assets and collectively incur liabilities. Ascribing an ethical standard to corporations is as meaningful and effective as ascribing an ethical standard to a hammer. The hammer has no ethics. It is wielded in a manner that is ethical or unethical, legal or illegal, by a person.