Ethics and Strategic Communications

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Ethics and Strategic Communications
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People I meet at parties, once they discover how
I make my living, feel compelled to tell me about
the low regard in which they hold advertising.
But in return for my listening to their
complaints, they have to answer some questions
too - John O'Toole, The Trouble with
Advertising
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Questioning the Critic

• Learning New Info
• Choice Among Options
• Engine for Economy
• Voice for Political Views
• Artistic/Creative
• Public Service Messages
• Underwrites the Cost of Media

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"Advertising is much less powerful than
advertisers and critics of advertising claim, and
advertising agencies are stabbing in the dark
much more than they are practicing precision
microsurgery on the public consciousness." -
Michael Schudson, Advertising, The Uneasy
Persuasion
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Rise of The Database

• Much more precise
• Vast amounts of information
• More pronounced effects
• Much less stabbing in the dark

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Ethical Challenges

• Branding Parity Products
• Fostering Consumerism
• Fostering Cultural Imperialism
• Distort Differences
• Attack Reputations
• Stereotyping Groups
• Distasteful and Vulgar

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Some Responses

• Truthfulness in Advertising
• Dignity of Human Beings
• Advertising and Social Responsibility
• Ecological
• Health
• Politics
• Social Comparison

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Ethics and Media Planning

• Three major issues
• Targeting Vulnerable Populations
• Placement Restrict Locations
• Privacy Technological Boundaries

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• "Advertising is not the noblest creation of man's
  mind, as so many of its advocates would like the
  public to think. It does not, single-handedly,
  sustain the whole structure of capitalism and
  democracy in the Free World. It is just as
  nonsensical to suggest that we are superhuman as
  to accept the indictment that we are subhuman. We
  are merely human, trying to do a necessary human
  job with dignity, with decency and with
  competence."
• - Leo Burnett, quoted in Ogilvy on Advertising