Commercial advertising is a phenomenon closely associated with capitalist consumer culture. The ubiquitous ad space that engulfs urban human habitation has no parallels in terms of its reach and influence. Advertising performs a key role in industrial economies and its infiltration into both print and online formats is unlikely to abate. With ad spends always on ascent it is not difficult to understand why advertising businesses expect maximum Return on Investment (ROI) on their ad spends. Advertisers’ intention is to make their products/services appear very attractive to a broad consumer base. Advertising is not inherently sinister, but its practical application as of today makes it ethically dubious. In other words, the concept of marketing commodities in a consumer market had long drawn the criticism of ethicists. The fundamentally weak moral imperative of capitalist culture makes this outcome inevitable. As a result, marketing strategies in industrial societies have attracted flak and condemnation from the judicious members of society – the United Kingdom being no exception.
Benjamin Disraeli bemoaned more than a century back “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.” (Edman, 2001, p.417) It would be apt to add advertising to this list, especially since the latter half of the twentieth century. In this view,
“Advertising, like statistics, is recognized commonly as a medium where facts can be interpreted, twisted, and emphasized according to the advertiser’s needs. When business judgment and professional ethics fail to enforce reasonable standards, the courts may have to decide if advertisers have twisted the facts too far.” (Edman, 2001, p.417)
There is a basic economic theory of consumer behaviour which says that consumers make rational choices – buying only products and services they want and shunning those that are unnecessary or overpriced. But a brief glance at the shelves of our department stores would reveal how fallacious this theory is. The fact of the matter is, to a large part, consumers are made to act irrationally, to buy products and services they don’t want and can’t afford. The boom in the credit card industry since the 1970s (across all advanced societies) is a testament to how people have accustomed themselves to living on debt. (Scott, 2004, p.187)
Advertisers claim that their ad campaigns are designed to ‘educate’ the target audience about the advantages and benefits of a particular product. There is also the implicit assumption that the product thus promoted is essential to living a comfortable life. But both of these claims are usually untrue. Far from informing the public, ad campaigns mislead or misinform them. And it stands to reason that basic necessities of life need no promotion. For example, people will continue to buy wheat flour and other staple food items despite total lack of advertisement for the same. In this scenario, the theory that most advertisements are designed to sell products that people don’t need becomes evident. As for the theory that they pay with money they don’t have, one only needs to look at the frequency of economic depression and recession over the last four centuries. At the same time that globalization and free flow of capital took off across the world, the boom in credit card usage happened concurrently. This resulted in a society that runs perennially on debt. The global economic meltdown of 2008 was due to the collapse of sub-prime housing loans that were promoted aggressively in the years leading up to the crisis. (Mujtaba, 2005, p.60)
Beyond the twin sins perpetuated by advertising – selling people things they don’t need and making them pay with money they don’t have – there is a more sinister side to the concept. A case in point is the drug Vioxx, which attracted several consumer lawsuits after being pitched for sale by Olympic gold medallist figure-skater Dorothy Hamill. In this case, so many thousands of patients’ lives are endangered due to selective disclosure of all the side-effects and risk factors of the drug. When consumers are misled into believing that the claims made by an advertisement are correct, when in reality they are not, the situation constitutes a ‘harm’ directed toward consumers. People act upon their assumptions and beliefs; and hence a misled consumer “may be tempted to buy the advertised product. More consumers are likely to buy the advertised product as a result of the ad claim because they believe it to be true”. (Mujtaba, 2005, p.61)
An area of concern regarding ethical marketing practices is the presently fashionable marketing technique that tries to attract target consumers in such a manner that they do not even realize they’re dealing with an advertisement. And quite rightly, this has attracted the ire of media watchdogs such as Commercial Alert. As marketing messages get embedded and ingrained into “new, apparently casual conversation and unbranded commercial websites, new legal and ethical questions about when marketing should be labelled as such are emerging fast” (Marks, 2005, p.31). This recent development poses a risk for gullible internet users, for whom the credibility of a claim made online is difficult to assess. In spite of a few regulatory efforts on part of the governing authorities, the situation remains tense. Recently advocacy group Commercial Alert “called on 305 book editors not to review what it said was an ad, not a young-adult novel”. (Marks, 2005) This episode is the most recent of many marketing tactics that has brought forth disclosure questions – especially for global marketing brands such as P&G – as it indicates an increasing willingness on part of marketers to try non-traditional and non-ethical tactics (Marks, 2005, p.31). This also makes it clear that the beyond catering to the basic needs of citizens, advertisements attempt to create a longing for fashionable consumption that borders on greed and luxury.
Clearly, claiming a product or a service to be essential to life when it is not (sometimes it can even be harmful) is attempting to deceive gullible consumers. Researcher Aaker was the first to formulate the now-common view that advertisements can also mislead the consumer. According to him, deception is said to exist when “the output of the perceptual process (a) differs from the reality of the situation and (b) affects the buying behaviour to the detriment of the consumer”. (Nagar, 2009, p.106)
Many companies interweave social issues with their advertisement campaigns to show they care about issues and causes dear to the general public, from illnesses such as AIDS to the environment to funding educational institutions. No one expects brands to go un-noticed in these campaigns, but too much “brand bull-horning” has left the public with sentiments of suspicion and disillusionment. They have come to the conclusion that it’s more about selling the product than about working for the cause. This is a blatant violation of public trust. It is also a cheap way of gaining publicity for their products. Such marketing strategies are despicable and need to be curbed by the authorities concerned.
That consideration of human needs as against human wants and desires is a low priority for advertisers is borne out by the following finding. In a research study conducted by Davis et.al, of the various factors such as ethical considerations, legal considerations, consequences to business, and anticipated approval of management/peers – ethics does not weigh much in terms of the final ad content and policy. For example, they found that
“the legal consideration factors (i.e. laws and regulations), not ethics, was the most influential factor for most of the advertising managers. This means that fear of punishment in case of disobedience of law was a stronger reason for the advertisers to avoid falsehood in advertisements than was personal ethics. Apparently, advertisers weigh ethical decisions (what is considered to be in the good interest of the public and the absolute “rightness” of decisions) as less important than legal considerations when it comes to advertising content and policy.” (Nagar, 2009, p.107)
Findings such as these underscore the fact that advertisements surrounding us tempt us to buy products we don’t need and at a cost we can’t afford. It also explains why our societies keep falling into cycles of boom and bust (these cycles are getting ever shorter), causing distress to a majority of the population. One of the ethically problematic ad campaigns is with respect to cigarettes (which is obviously not a human ‘need’), which continues to be the most heavily advertised commodity in the industrialized world. Ever since the beginning of the 1980’s, an increasing proportion of those marketing budget is dedicated to what is “probably the most sophisticated consumer marketing databases in the business world”. Here is a brewing concern for ethicists, as tobacco usage is proven to lead to many terminal and irreversible illnesses.
Another marketing concept that is undermining public health and well-being is the drive for impulse purchases. Many supermarkets make lots of profits from chocolates, sweets and other snacks (all items not deemed as a human ‘need’) that are displayed near the checking counter. But all along, they are cognizant of the health undermining effects of such foods. But a reluctance to abandon such practices had forced government health authorities to make stricter regulations. The Food Commission has restarted the initiative first undertaken in the early years of the last decade calling for retailers to “chuck snacks off the checkout”. Quite rightly, they claim that supermarkets are putting temptation in the way of consumers and their family by encouraging impulse purchases of fat-rich and sugary products that are harmful for health in the long run (Neff, 2006, p.4). Food Commission nutritionist Annie Seeley says:
“Seventy per cent of confectionery is bought on impulse. Retailers know that putting snacks and soft drinks at the checkout where people queue increases sales substantially. But parents say this manipulative marketing technique leads to family conflict when children pester for the products and parents have to say ‘no’.” (Gross, 2006, p.325)
In conclusion, it is thus fair to say that Mark Twain was right in his assessment – ‘Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have for something they don’t need’. When accurate, advertising can help us consider more of the possibilities of life; when not accurate, and when it encourages foolish decisions, “advertising may have us buying inefficient, unreliable, unneeded or even dangerous products, wasting our time and money, while making us less intelligent and less happy by encouraging a perpetual consumption cycle. Advertising and other propaganda often name products and policies in ways meant to manipulate our reactions while avoiding critical questions.” (Scott, 2004, p.187)
What is also the need of the hour is a shift away from commercial advertising (which is prone to corruption as illustrated above) and toward social marketing campaigns that work for greater common good. In the case of the latter, a collective transformation in public consciousness is the criteria through which success is ascertained. Hence, while the media of communication remains the same, the motive and method employed are quite different in these two frameworks.
With the advancement and proliferation of telecommunication technology in the last decade, carrying out social marketing campaigns had become a little easier. Such critical areas for public awareness as the fight against HIV-AIDS, recreational drug use, alcoholism, smoking, etc have been successfully implemented. Other areas where social marketing campaigns were carried out include the fight against junk food and obesity, inoculation and immunization against deadly microbes, support for cancer screening and intervention, etc. Even ailments that are not easily identified such as anxiety, depression, etc have been addressed through these campaigns. The success of these campaigns suggests that advertisement professionals can serve the society better by moving away from commercial marketing and applying their skills on social issues and progressive causes. By doing so, they can help generate public discussions and promote awareness information, resulting in changes in attitudes, values and behaviours.
References
Edman, T. W. (2001). Lies, Damn Lies, and Misleading Advertising: The Role of Consumer Surveys in the Wake of Mead Johnson V. Abbott Labs. William and Mary Law Review, 43(1), 417+.
“Ethical marketing: Get your house in order.” Marketing (May 23, 2007): 25.
Gross, J. E. (2006). The First Amendment and Diet Industry Advertising: How “Puffery” in Weight-Loss Advertisements Has Gone Too Far. Journal of Law and Health, 20(2), 325+.
Koslow, S. (2000). Can the Truth Hurt? How Honest and Persuasive Advertising Can Unintentionally Lead to Increased Consumer Skepticism. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 34(2), 245.
Marks, Raymond. (June 9, 2005) “Insight – Ethics: Expert View.(Brief Article).” Marketing Week, p.31.
Mujtaba, B., & Jue, A. L. (2005). Deceptive and Subliminal Advertising in Corporate America: Value Adder or Value Destroyer?. Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, 10(1), 59+.
Nagar, K. (2009, October/March). Effect of Deceptive Advertising on Claim Recall: an Experimental Research. Journal of Services Research, 9, 105+.
Neff, Jack. (June 19, 2006), “Disclosure debate hits novel ideas; Efforts to integrate brands into cultural and conversational spaces scare ethicists.” Advertising Age 77.25 : 4.
Scott, R. I. (2004). Politics, Advertising, and Excuses: Why Do We Lie?. et Cetera, 61(2), 187+.
Tanaka, K. (1994). Advertising Language: A Pragmatic Approach to Advertisements in Britain and Japan. London: Routledge.