Advertising And Ethics

2 Pages 416 Words

Advertising and Ethics

The purpose of advertising is to inform people of what is available for purchasing. This seems harmless, but too many advertisers set out to deceive consumers about their products. Unfortunately, they do a very good job with this and successfully deceive many people. Although consumers need to learn how to read advertisements correctly, the advertisers still have an obligation to inform about their products honestly
Many advertisements give the impression that their product is better than it really is. People today tend to dismiss this as acceptable within the advertising realm; however, it’s harmful to consumers. This deception causes the consumers to spend money on things they would never purchase if ads hadn’t deceived them. This is unfair to the consumers. These consumers are working hard for money they are spending on things they will probably never use. I feel that it is completely unethical for advertising companies to condone this and simply write it off as “part of the job”.
Some advertisements try to sell products that are obviously not what they claim to be. I’ve seen advertisements for soaps and lotions that burn away fat. Ads like these are amusing and make most of us wonder about the people who would actually fall for them and buy the product.
While many ads like the ones just mentioned are easy to see through there are many that are more difficult to see as false. According to the Social Security Administration, recently many people were victimized by advertisers who used the words “Social Security” in their advertising to bring in consumers. Often the companies charged for services that were available for free through Social Security.
Not only is this kind of advertising unethical, it is now illegal. According to the Department of Advertising at the University of Texas, advertisements whose overall message says that something which is misleading from the actua...