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10 Importance of ethical communication in advertising
Advertisement ethics and laws
Economic, social and ethical issues in advertising
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1. Summary
The Naked Brand documentary (Rosenblum, Huang, 2014. Burg, Dumont) discusses the importance of corporate transparency in terms of marketing and the effect advertising methods such as good customer service, helpful employees, and transparency can have on the consumers and ultimately the business. This documentary acknowledges the way customers react to eco-friendly businesses through the advertising medium, and how they react to unethical behavior as well as social and environmental irresponsibility.
Virgin Airlines, represented by Porter Gale, is a good example of effective advertising due to the fact that emphasis is put on improving customer service, which leads to word of mouth advertising by the customers rather that money spent
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(Bhatti, 2016) Aflac can be seen as unethical advertising due to the lack of information about the product to consumers, which can be seen as misleading the customer. (Rosenblum, Huang, 2014. Burg, Dumont)
The Crayola Scandal can also be seen as misleading the customer due to the fact that when advertising the colour bubbles, the warning of mess and stains was not mentioned. After this scandal, Crayola was no longer perceived as a transparent or trustworthy brand, which leads to a decrease in the market share. (Rosenblum, Huang, 2014. Burg, Dumont)
Nike, Mattel and Chesterfields can be seen as lacking transparency due to Nikes child labour, overworking of staff , 2/3 women suffering from respritory diseases due to factory conditions, wastages and sexual harrassment cases, which all were kept under the radar until Dara O'rouke researched the factories. Ater this scandal was voiced to the public, Nike lost up to 20% of its profits. Mattel also lacks transparency due to the lead in their products that was not warned to the public, which brought an uproar from consumers and loss of trust for the Mattel brand. Chesterfields were misleadingly advertised as not bad for your nose, throat or other accessory organs. (Rosenblum, Huang, 2014. Burg,
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This makes Zappos reliable and credible to the consumer due to their transparency, which makes Zappos therefore, ethical. (Rosenblum, Huang, 2014. Burg, Dumont)
Nascar marketed and sponsored the Nascar racing at the expence of homeless veterans by cutting $75 Million of the homeless veteran benefits, which negatively contributed to the social issue of poverty, as well as economically by making a $27 Million profit at the expense of homeless veterans. (Rosenblum, Huang, 2014. Burg, Dumont) This refers to Triple bottom line reporting, which is an accounting framework with three elements: social, environmental and ecomomic. This entails conquering social issues such as poverty and unemployment, environmental issues such as pollution and wastage of resources, and economic issues such as recession. (unknown, 2016)
Another negative effect that business has made in term of triple bottom line reporting is the BP oil spill, which is environmentally irresponsible due to the birds and sea creatures who were killed by the oil. (Rosenblum, Huang, 2014. Burg, Dumont)
This shows that unethical behavior in terms of Triple Bottom Line contributes to negative business marketing and ultimately less market share for those
Advertisements are one of many things that Americans cannot get away from. Every American sees an average of 3,000 advertisements a day; whether it’s on the television, radio, while surfing the internet, or while driving around town. Advertisements try to get consumers to buy their products by getting their attention. Most advertisements don’t have anything to do with the product itself. Every company has a different way of getting the public’s attention, but every advertisement has the same goal - to sell the product. Every advertisement tries to appeal to the audience by using ethos, pathos, and logos, while also focusing on who their audience is and the purpose of the ad. An example of this is a Charmin commercial where there is a bear who gets excited when he gets to use the toilet paper because it is so soft.
Mattel Corporation, known as the largest toy company in the world, is a publicly traded organization with a market capitalization of over $6.5 billion. Employing approximately 36,000 people worldwide in 43 countries, their products are well-known and sold in over 150 nations (Mattel.com). With such winning odds as mentioned, it is hard to imagine that a company readily known to children and adults across the globe would become even better known for the company that produced toys made with lead-based products. This assignment will discuss whether or not Mattel acted in an ethical and socially responsible manner in their decision to recall defective toys, what they perhaps could have done differently to avoid this issue, and the best way society can continue to protect children from potentially harmful toys.
What comes to your mind when you think about advertising? Is it a television commercial? It is a plain black and white newspaper ad? Or what about a social media app? Advertising has many different communication outlets that can be used to promote a company’s brand, product, or service. By using advertising, a company uses some combination of media to get a message across to customers. Companies tend to use multiple strategies while advertising so that all targeted audiences have a potential to view the ad. Delta Airlines uses many different types of strategies when advertising to its segmented customer base to help capture all media users.
Green washing: The disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image. In order for big companies to stay on top of the market today, they are forced to think of advertising strategies to help their public image and advertise their product. Over the years the system has become very complex and also very questionable. Companies are willing to lie, change their logo, and sometimes even their company name just to keep their name and image clean in front of the public just to make sure that they are making their money. Green washing helps this by advertising to the public that they are environmentally supportive and responsible. Most people that are into buying “green products” do not even realize that the company they are buying from is green washing in some sort of way just so that they can attract attention to the public. Green washing companies may advertise that they are “eco-friendly”, but when it comes down to it, the facts hidden behind the curtains beg to differ. Just like in the green washing video we watched in class, the companies may look great compared to the worst companies, but that does not mean what they are doing is still productive for our environmental movement. One company that has been notorious for their green washing efforts for the past couple of decades is the Oil/energy company: British Petroleum a.k.a. Beyond Petroleum. They are one of the world’s largest leading oil companies who has also becoming a large energy supplying company with presence in petrochemicals, gas, and solar divisions. Over the past twenty years BP has been the cause of several deadly disasters in the oil business in the U.S. and around the world. Despite their green washing effor...
dishonest in the way it advertises itself to the public. In addition, by the open manner in which the recruiter made the comment, it appears that dishonesty is an accepted part of the corporate culture. The question should arise in Benji's mind, "If this is that way the act towards the public, what is to prevent the company from acting this way towards me?" In Dobson's critique of virtue ethics, he discusses that a business can appear to be ethical and virtuous in the community,
Every company that has a product to sell wants to have their advertisements grab the attention of the potential buyer. Companies today are competing at high levels to come up with the advertisements that will be flashy and aggressive so consumers will become interested in their product. However, a commercial or an ad might not get the initial point across or cause many viewers to be confused when they see them. Sometimes, what the company is trying to do might offend people. Ethical lines may be walked upon so that the strong points can be presented to the consumer.
Consumers rely on good faith that whatever is being advertised is true. This is why they even go an extra mile to read reviews to ascertain this fact and find out more of what was probably erroneously forgotten. Unethical advertisers know this fact as well and they capitalize on it and manipulate consumers. They know claims are only verified when a person buys and uses the commodity. Thus, by the time the client goes through this process of verifying, the sale person will have made sales for that particular moment. Unfortunately, these kinds of marketers are short sighted and this behavior only works in the short run. Once the consumers find out the truth, they stop using that product and feel exploited. The advertiser and the consumer benefit nothing and this a...
In the contents of this case there are several management and safety issues and areas for improvement. One issue is Mattel, Inc.’s responsibility to its stakeholders; to its customers, to its stockholders, to its employees, and to its suppliers. The responsibility to Mattel’s customers is that of producing and selling safe products. Along with the recall on the lead coated toys there were also toys that contained small, but powerful magnets that if swallowed could attract each other and cause serious or fatal intestinal perforation or blockage. These defects were not discovered during the testing of the products. Before this incident occurred Mattel, Inc. was recognized by Forbes magazine as one of the 100 most trustworthy U.S. companies. Too this, Mattel did everything they could to assure that they were doing everything possible to handle and correct this problem. For Mattel’s stockholders, the company had to make sure that the image and reputation was saved and redeemed as soon as possible. With such a massive and extensive recall of potentially hazardous products, that was designed to be safe for children, the stock prices and e...
This Coca Cola malfunction incident demonstrates that if attention is not paid to the ethical operation or the company it could challenge and threaten a company’s short and long term performance. This could have long lasting affects on the companies operations and requires strategic decisions to restore company’s image in the eyes of the customers. Gaining the trust of customers takes long time but it is broken with one small incident.
In this day and age companies have mastered the technique of misleading customers by fabricating false claims about a green product or service that they swear to provide. This insincere display of information is called ‘Greenwashing’, a spin-off of ‘Whitewashing’. Greenwashing could be said to be a global phenomenon and it’s commonly seen in advertisements, on products packing, websites, emails, speeches, and videos (just to name a few). Greenwashing is a thought out process, a planned and typically well designed campaign. There is a wide range of reasons why companies are eager to partake in greenwashing; divert attention for regulatory change, to persuade critics or consumers, expand the company's market, and to make the company seem appealing. The goal of this paper is to provide three examples of ‘greenwashing’ and to relate these examples to Downing et al. concepts.
To conclude business organizations do not have the right to deceive individuals and consumers in specific because Albert Carr’s claim that business is a game cannot be justifiable and supported with reasons that may harm or the community and its people. However, I do believe that business organizations should be socially responsible and that would help them maximize profits in the long run (Lauren, 2011)
This shows how the employees value their work, it shows their interpersonal skills, as well as how they perceive themselves. Zappos employees need to have strong work ethics because this is important for the job. Consumers need to see proper work ethics for the company to grow. (Michelli, 2012).
Businesses are in game in order to earn money and advertising is the strongest weapon that helps to sell a particular product . An advertisement can be harmful and misleading as well as helpful and beneficial . Advertising in ethics is an unclear concept , but truly the main goals of corporations should be avoid misleading their customers by setting up wrong expectations and to keep their current clients .The major problem with advertising is that most of them are misleading . Advertisements create an unrealistic and sometimes irrelevant impression of an any particular product. Unfortunately, often , consumers become the victims of their tricks .
Louie, A. L., & Kulik, L. R., & Jacobson, R. (2001). When bad things happen to the endorsers of good products.
Young, D. (2012). Green Marketing & Marketing Ethics, Room 009, Block 17, Middlesex University Dubai. (25th March, 2012)