Advertising:
An Un-Ethical Assault
Business 1040 Ethics Term Project Report
Composed by:
Robynn Clayton & Alex Dial
BUS 1040 December 2011
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-10
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Resolution.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Introduction
Have you been sexually “assaulted” today, yet? Well chances are you will be! The surprising part is that it will most likely occur in one of the following locations: your home, your car, the bathroom, the mall, the kitchen, at work, the library, at school, the gym, the salon, or in a restaurant. Perhaps you are now thinking, “Huh, I’ve been assaulted?” And if you are a perverted teenage boy, then you are probably thinking, “…crap, I missed it!” But, if neither of these thoughts have crossed your mind, it may be due to the fact that many of us do not actually realize that we are being, and will be, sexually “assaulted.” Now, we aren’t talking about being physically assaulted but assaulted by advertisements that we see or experience. The culprits of many of these sexual assaults may be found in advertisements we see on television in our homes, billboards while driving to work, in magazine while at the doctor’s office, books, or simply a poster at the gym.
Whether or not you agree morally about the use of sexuality in advertising, you probably care about right vs. wrong, legal vs. illegal, or as Star Wars puts it “Jedi’s” vs. “Sith.” Herein we simply wish to address the issue of the continuous bombardment of sexuality in advertising and the ethicality of this practice in accordance with laws and guidelines that have been set and allow you, the reader, to make an informed decision as to where you and your family will draw the line as to what is “right and wrong.”
Findings
Today, a father watching football with his family must be ready to distract kids during commercial breaks or altogether skip ads via DVR. Because without a screening strategy in place, kids who watch sports on TV will be subjected—regardless of time of day—to unrated, hypersexual, male-oriented advertising promoting products like erectile dysfunction drugs, or implying that the use of hair-care products can lead to spontaneous sexual encounters. (Askar 2011)
The above mentioned is an incidence all too common in our society; e.g. with the Super Bowl coming up in a few weeks, parents will most definitely need to be on the lookout as their families go to watch the “big game” or simply their favorite mid-day sitcom. As Americans we tend to enjoy watching some sort of sporting event on TV but how many of us want to be worrying about the maturity level of the commercials we watch at “half-time.” But, who do we talk to in order to have those sexually implicit hair-care product commercials to simply be about hair-care and not sex?
The Code
First, a little background information is necessary. Advertisers and marketing firms alike are “governed” by the American Marketing Association’s Code of Ethics; and we would like to point out various parts of the preamble of this code of ethics; it states:
The American Marketing Association commits itself to promoting the highest standard of professional ethical norms and values….values represent the collective conception of what communities find desirable, important, and morally proper….we recognize that we…act as stewards of society in creating, facilitating and executing the transactions that are part of the greater economy. In this role, marketers are expected to embrace the highest professional ethical norms and the ethical values implied by our responsibility toward…customers, employees, investors, peers, channel members, regulators and the host community.” (Grewal 2010) (emphasis added)
To us, that sounds a bit contradictory; the Marketing Association commits itself to high standards and yet later says that members are only “expected” to follow those norms and, who actually enforces them? From our perspective the words “commit” and “expect” have different meanings; a commitment is a promise but an expectation may be skewed and changed. The preamble later states that marketers “create” transactions. In Friederich von Hayek’s article The Non Sequitur of the Dependence Effect, he says the following about this type of creation:
…a great part of the wants which are still unsatisfied in modern society are not wants which would be experienced spontaneously by the individual if left to himself. But are wants which are created by the process by which they are satisfied. (Ciulla 2010)
What Hayek is saying is that many of the desires and interests we have would never have existed if we were never shown the “realities” portrayed in advertisements. But why do marketers use so much sex appeal to sell their products and what are the tools which they use to do it?
The Tool
We believe that the prevalence of sex in advertising is due to the widely used AIDA theory. AIDA –Attention Interest Desire Action—is an advertising model that has been used since 1898 and its purpose is to grab the attention of the consumer and by doing so facilitate an interest in the product being advertised. Many times advertisers use controversial methods or provocative sexual images to capture the attention of their audience. Due to the nature of these images, the audience develops a less than sincere interest in the product and instead an interest in the false reality portrayed by the advertisement; which in most cases is implied sexuality.
Consider this example: (funnycommercials.com)
For many men looking at this image, they could be led to believe that if they eat Carl’s Junior they will then have a wife or girlfriend like Kim Kardashian or will simply be reminded of Ms. Kardashian when they eat Carl’s Junior. For women, however, this may be understood that if they eat at Carl’s Junior, they can look like Ms. Kardashian, thereby “satisfying” their husband’s, or “a man’s” interest. Either way, this advertisement is definitely not focused on the salad and the creators of this advertisement have definitely overstepped their bounds. Many advertisers have gone beyond the limits in their self-created role as an author of societal values and norms. We don’t know about you, but we were under the impression, due to the language set forth in the preamble that, “marketers embraced the highest professional ethical norms and values.” And if these are the highest ethical values of the consumers they surveyed, then they certainly have not asked our opinion.
Once advertisers have your attention they seek to create Desire. If an advertisement’s audience has a desire that is due to the false reality in the advertisement, then the resulting action will not bring the desired results. For example, using the above advertisement, suppose a young man sees this commercial and develops the desire to eat Carl’s Junior with Kim Kardashian. He will be quite heartbroken when he opens up his bag of fast-food and notices that Ms. Kardashian is not in the bag of condiments which came with his salad.
Advertising agencies would be and are violating their own code of ethics, which they themselves created! Many of their advertisements simply do not meet their own requirements. In their code of ethics they have included a transparency regulation which states that the advertisers must:
“…explain and take appropriate action regarding significant product or service risks so that any potential reasonable consumer should be able to clearly understand and interpret the meaning of the advertisement.” (Grewal 2010)
When these types of commercials air, most adults know that neither Ms. Kardashian nor any other attractive woman or man is going to pop out of your “happy” meal box. But little children do not, so we can fairly ask: will they be content with a little superman action figure that is included with the happy meal or are they going to be expecting a miniature model?
Advertisers are targeting people younger and younger so that when these individuals are older, they already have a preference towards certain companies, items, ideas, or ideals. We do not disagree with advertisers’ desire to have loyal future customers, but we do disagree with how they are trying to accomplish that goal. According to the American Marketing Association’s code of ethics, marketers are supposed to meet various values and norms. Unfortunately, advertisers very rarely ever meet these values and norms! Another example of one of the values included in their code of ethics is respect, which is stated as follows:
…value individual differences and avoid stereotyping customers or depicting demographic groups (e.g., gender, race, sexual orientation) in a negative or dehumanizing way. Treat everyone, including our competitors, as we would wish to be treated. (Grewal 2010)
Offender
In an interview by Advertising Age magazine with Mike McNeil, the Chief Marketing Officer of the Hooters restaurant chain we can see a less than ideal attitude toward the advertising code of ethics. An excerpt of the interview follows:
…Advertising Age: So what would you say if you’re daughter wanted to work at Hooters?
Mr. McNeil: I think she’s curious about it, but she hasn’t asked me about working there yet. One of the things she did ask me about is if I could set up a photo shoot for her and her friends with the glamour and hair and makeup and great lighting. We do have a lot of expertise in that area with the calendar and magazine. We have the ability to take young women’s god-given beauty and make them look even better. I sort of chuckled to myself – they want to get some hot pictures and post them on Facebook. Look, they’re not gonna be with their tops off or anything, it’s going to be a relatively conservative sort of thing. The reality is we live in a society that puts an importance on appearance and in some ways more so for women. I didn’t make the world that way, it’s just the way it is. When was the last time you saw an unattractive news anchor or TV host? Appearance matters. We sort of take it to the next level at Hooters, but I think that’s something that’s okay to do. (Advertising Age 2011)
Now maybe we are just a little naïve, but what exactly are Mr. McNeil’s definitions of “relatively conservative” and “next level”? Since we weren’t sure, we collected some images to compare and contrast possibilities of these definitions.
If these are Mr. McNeil’s definitions, we feel quite empathetic for his daughter. On its website, Hooter’s states that their restaurants are “Delightfully Tacky……Yet Unrefined,” (westcoasthooters.com), as far as the image they wish to portray to the public. To us that seems to be an oxymoron; how can something be pleasingly disgusting? The only way that makes ethical sense to us is if you are using two separate people to define the experience, one views it as delightful while the other views it as tacky. Unless you have an individual whose pleasure is when something is distasteful to the majority of society?
In the Eyes of the Beholder
Who has the right to put a price on the human body? Nobody truly has that ability and yet many models allow modeling firms to do so. According to San Diego Model Management, the highest paying models are based in New York and bring in $5,000-$6,000 for an eight hour day of work. In the western part of the country, models only bring in roughly $1,500 a day. You may be thinking that is a lot of money for one day of work, but consider the following:
· Ad agencies that hire the models take 20% from the model and 20% from the client.
· If a model is hired for $1,000, the ad agency bills the client for $1,200 (adding 20%) and takes 20% from the $1,000 the model earned, leaving her or him with $800.
· The agency makes $400; in a normal booking the agency makes about 33%.
Do you still think that is a lot of money? Well the emotional and physical toll that models experience is overwhelming. Clients send clothes much smaller than what a normal person should fit into and expect the models to do whatever it takes to make them fit. The fashion industry is obsessed with a size zero, and because of this 40% of models suffer from some kind of eating disorder, but who believes there are a growing number of hidden eating disorders. (Medical News Today)
In Jean Kilbourne’s film series “Killing us Softly,” she ascertains that most advertisements “…dehumanize women and turn them into objects portraying them as vulnerable, weak, and fragile.”(2008)
Conclusions
Advertisers are bombarding us with the use of sexuality in their advertisements; the ethicality of this practice is pushing the limits with the American Marketers Association code of ethics. As we have stated, advertisers are going above and beyond to create a loyal customer and sell products anyway they can. Sex sells; therefore, they use it to their advantage, not keeping in mind what effects this will have on all parties directly or indirectly involved. Whether or not you believe this is morally acceptable, advertisers are not sticking closely to the boundaries they themselves have set, creating an ethical dilemma.
Now of course advertisers and marketers are going to say that we as the consumers “vote with our dollars,” in that if we buy a product and that product is being marketed using sexual imagery, they will say that we are supporting and agreeing with the marketing strategy. Yet some products, such as body wash or tooth-paste are staple items. Now whether or not sex is used in a tooth-paste commercial, we will still purchase it for our daily use thereby causing distorted results.
Resolution
According to Chris Black, marketing teacher at Salt Lake Community College “…we haven’t even reached the top of the pendulum swing compared to what is happening in Europe.” (2011) We need to decide now as individuals, families, and citizens what the limit will be and we need to make the marketers and advertisers hold true to their “so-called” code of ethics. We need to do all in our power to make them adhere to their:
…highest professional ethical norms and ethical values implied by (their) responsibility toward…customers…and the host community.” (Grewal 2010)
We need to not buy into the “false realities” created by advertisers and we can speak out against it; simply get involved. Petition for “real” models, real people, and reality in general instead of fantasy laced commercials. A very effective wake-up call could be simply turning off the TV during commercials and half-time intervals during sporting events. We can do it!
Sources
Advertising Age. Advertisement. 15 Aug. 2011. Web. Oct, 2011.
http://adage.com/article/news/hooters-cmo-mcneil-talks-sex-appeal-american/229258/>.
Askar, Jamshid Ghazi. “Home Invasion.” Deseret News [Salt Lake City] 14 Oct. 2011. Print
Black, Christopher. “Advertising.” Personal Interview. 12 Oct. 2011.
Ciulla, Joanne B., Clancy Martin, and Robert C. Solomon.
“The Art of Seduction.” Honest Work a Business Ethics Reader. 2nd ed. Print.
Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. “Ethical Norms and Values for Marketers, Retrieved
fromhttp://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages.Statement%200f%20Ethics.aspx (accessed April 21, 2010).” Marketing. 3rd ed. Print.
Hayek, Friedrich von. (1961). The non sequitur of the “Dependence Effect.” Honest Work
"Mission." Hooters.com. Hooters, 2008. Web. 30 Oct. 2011.
<http://www.hooters.com/Mission.aspx>.
“Conservative.” Tineye.com. 30 Oct. 2011
<http://www.tineye.com/search/8597a649b955f507f6b309d62282626b2898e26c/?sort=size&order=desc>
Funny Commercials.com
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=carls+junior+commercials&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1C1CHNU_enUS437US437&biw=1024&bih=677&tbm=isch&tbnid=QmzhQB7u8p1OXM:&imgrefurl=http://www.funnycommercialsworld.com/carls-jr-commercial-with-kim-kardashian-new-grilled-chicken-salads-3408.html&docid=3W-qsv-wNoe_6M&imgurl=http://www.funnycommercialsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Kim-Kardashian.jpg&w=560&h=315&ei=e4TITsqaNYvZiAL-yPn_Dw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=683&vpy=177&dur=3818&hovh=168&hovw=300&tx=217&ty=69&sig=109574773574830761677&page=1&tbnh=100&tbnw=177&&ndsp=13&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0
An Un-Ethical Assault
Business 1040 Ethics Term Project Report
Composed by:
Robynn Clayton & Alex Dial
BUS 1040 December 2011
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-10
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Resolution.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Introduction
Have you been sexually “assaulted” today, yet? Well chances are you will be! The surprising part is that it will most likely occur in one of the following locations: your home, your car, the bathroom, the mall, the kitchen, at work, the library, at school, the gym, the salon, or in a restaurant. Perhaps you are now thinking, “Huh, I’ve been assaulted?” And if you are a perverted teenage boy, then you are probably thinking, “…crap, I missed it!” But, if neither of these thoughts have crossed your mind, it may be due to the fact that many of us do not actually realize that we are being, and will be, sexually “assaulted.” Now, we aren’t talking about being physically assaulted but assaulted by advertisements that we see or experience. The culprits of many of these sexual assaults may be found in advertisements we see on television in our homes, billboards while driving to work, in magazine while at the doctor’s office, books, or simply a poster at the gym.
Whether or not you agree morally about the use of sexuality in advertising, you probably care about right vs. wrong, legal vs. illegal, or as Star Wars puts it “Jedi’s” vs. “Sith.” Herein we simply wish to address the issue of the continuous bombardment of sexuality in advertising and the ethicality of this practice in accordance with laws and guidelines that have been set and allow you, the reader, to make an informed decision as to where you and your family will draw the line as to what is “right and wrong.”
Findings
Today, a father watching football with his family must be ready to distract kids during commercial breaks or altogether skip ads via DVR. Because without a screening strategy in place, kids who watch sports on TV will be subjected—regardless of time of day—to unrated, hypersexual, male-oriented advertising promoting products like erectile dysfunction drugs, or implying that the use of hair-care products can lead to spontaneous sexual encounters. (Askar 2011)
The above mentioned is an incidence all too common in our society; e.g. with the Super Bowl coming up in a few weeks, parents will most definitely need to be on the lookout as their families go to watch the “big game” or simply their favorite mid-day sitcom. As Americans we tend to enjoy watching some sort of sporting event on TV but how many of us want to be worrying about the maturity level of the commercials we watch at “half-time.” But, who do we talk to in order to have those sexually implicit hair-care product commercials to simply be about hair-care and not sex?
The Code
First, a little background information is necessary. Advertisers and marketing firms alike are “governed” by the American Marketing Association’s Code of Ethics; and we would like to point out various parts of the preamble of this code of ethics; it states:
The American Marketing Association commits itself to promoting the highest standard of professional ethical norms and values….values represent the collective conception of what communities find desirable, important, and morally proper….we recognize that we…act as stewards of society in creating, facilitating and executing the transactions that are part of the greater economy. In this role, marketers are expected to embrace the highest professional ethical norms and the ethical values implied by our responsibility toward…customers, employees, investors, peers, channel members, regulators and the host community.” (Grewal 2010) (emphasis added)
To us, that sounds a bit contradictory; the Marketing Association commits itself to high standards and yet later says that members are only “expected” to follow those norms and, who actually enforces them? From our perspective the words “commit” and “expect” have different meanings; a commitment is a promise but an expectation may be skewed and changed. The preamble later states that marketers “create” transactions. In Friederich von Hayek’s article The Non Sequitur of the Dependence Effect, he says the following about this type of creation:
…a great part of the wants which are still unsatisfied in modern society are not wants which would be experienced spontaneously by the individual if left to himself. But are wants which are created by the process by which they are satisfied. (Ciulla 2010)
What Hayek is saying is that many of the desires and interests we have would never have existed if we were never shown the “realities” portrayed in advertisements. But why do marketers use so much sex appeal to sell their products and what are the tools which they use to do it?
The Tool
We believe that the prevalence of sex in advertising is due to the widely used AIDA theory. AIDA –Attention Interest Desire Action—is an advertising model that has been used since 1898 and its purpose is to grab the attention of the consumer and by doing so facilitate an interest in the product being advertised. Many times advertisers use controversial methods or provocative sexual images to capture the attention of their audience. Due to the nature of these images, the audience develops a less than sincere interest in the product and instead an interest in the false reality portrayed by the advertisement; which in most cases is implied sexuality.
Consider this example: (funnycommercials.com)
For many men looking at this image, they could be led to believe that if they eat Carl’s Junior they will then have a wife or girlfriend like Kim Kardashian or will simply be reminded of Ms. Kardashian when they eat Carl’s Junior. For women, however, this may be understood that if they eat at Carl’s Junior, they can look like Ms. Kardashian, thereby “satisfying” their husband’s, or “a man’s” interest. Either way, this advertisement is definitely not focused on the salad and the creators of this advertisement have definitely overstepped their bounds. Many advertisers have gone beyond the limits in their self-created role as an author of societal values and norms. We don’t know about you, but we were under the impression, due to the language set forth in the preamble that, “marketers embraced the highest professional ethical norms and values.” And if these are the highest ethical values of the consumers they surveyed, then they certainly have not asked our opinion.
Once advertisers have your attention they seek to create Desire. If an advertisement’s audience has a desire that is due to the false reality in the advertisement, then the resulting action will not bring the desired results. For example, using the above advertisement, suppose a young man sees this commercial and develops the desire to eat Carl’s Junior with Kim Kardashian. He will be quite heartbroken when he opens up his bag of fast-food and notices that Ms. Kardashian is not in the bag of condiments which came with his salad.
Advertising agencies would be and are violating their own code of ethics, which they themselves created! Many of their advertisements simply do not meet their own requirements. In their code of ethics they have included a transparency regulation which states that the advertisers must:
“…explain and take appropriate action regarding significant product or service risks so that any potential reasonable consumer should be able to clearly understand and interpret the meaning of the advertisement.” (Grewal 2010)
When these types of commercials air, most adults know that neither Ms. Kardashian nor any other attractive woman or man is going to pop out of your “happy” meal box. But little children do not, so we can fairly ask: will they be content with a little superman action figure that is included with the happy meal or are they going to be expecting a miniature model?
Advertisers are targeting people younger and younger so that when these individuals are older, they already have a preference towards certain companies, items, ideas, or ideals. We do not disagree with advertisers’ desire to have loyal future customers, but we do disagree with how they are trying to accomplish that goal. According to the American Marketing Association’s code of ethics, marketers are supposed to meet various values and norms. Unfortunately, advertisers very rarely ever meet these values and norms! Another example of one of the values included in their code of ethics is respect, which is stated as follows:
…value individual differences and avoid stereotyping customers or depicting demographic groups (e.g., gender, race, sexual orientation) in a negative or dehumanizing way. Treat everyone, including our competitors, as we would wish to be treated. (Grewal 2010)
Offender
In an interview by Advertising Age magazine with Mike McNeil, the Chief Marketing Officer of the Hooters restaurant chain we can see a less than ideal attitude toward the advertising code of ethics. An excerpt of the interview follows:
…Advertising Age: So what would you say if you’re daughter wanted to work at Hooters?
Mr. McNeil: I think she’s curious about it, but she hasn’t asked me about working there yet. One of the things she did ask me about is if I could set up a photo shoot for her and her friends with the glamour and hair and makeup and great lighting. We do have a lot of expertise in that area with the calendar and magazine. We have the ability to take young women’s god-given beauty and make them look even better. I sort of chuckled to myself – they want to get some hot pictures and post them on Facebook. Look, they’re not gonna be with their tops off or anything, it’s going to be a relatively conservative sort of thing. The reality is we live in a society that puts an importance on appearance and in some ways more so for women. I didn’t make the world that way, it’s just the way it is. When was the last time you saw an unattractive news anchor or TV host? Appearance matters. We sort of take it to the next level at Hooters, but I think that’s something that’s okay to do. (Advertising Age 2011)
Now maybe we are just a little naïve, but what exactly are Mr. McNeil’s definitions of “relatively conservative” and “next level”? Since we weren’t sure, we collected some images to compare and contrast possibilities of these definitions.
If these are Mr. McNeil’s definitions, we feel quite empathetic for his daughter. On its website, Hooter’s states that their restaurants are “Delightfully Tacky……Yet Unrefined,” (westcoasthooters.com), as far as the image they wish to portray to the public. To us that seems to be an oxymoron; how can something be pleasingly disgusting? The only way that makes ethical sense to us is if you are using two separate people to define the experience, one views it as delightful while the other views it as tacky. Unless you have an individual whose pleasure is when something is distasteful to the majority of society?
In the Eyes of the Beholder
Who has the right to put a price on the human body? Nobody truly has that ability and yet many models allow modeling firms to do so. According to San Diego Model Management, the highest paying models are based in New York and bring in $5,000-$6,000 for an eight hour day of work. In the western part of the country, models only bring in roughly $1,500 a day. You may be thinking that is a lot of money for one day of work, but consider the following:
· Ad agencies that hire the models take 20% from the model and 20% from the client.
· If a model is hired for $1,000, the ad agency bills the client for $1,200 (adding 20%) and takes 20% from the $1,000 the model earned, leaving her or him with $800.
· The agency makes $400; in a normal booking the agency makes about 33%.
Do you still think that is a lot of money? Well the emotional and physical toll that models experience is overwhelming. Clients send clothes much smaller than what a normal person should fit into and expect the models to do whatever it takes to make them fit. The fashion industry is obsessed with a size zero, and because of this 40% of models suffer from some kind of eating disorder, but who believes there are a growing number of hidden eating disorders. (Medical News Today)
In Jean Kilbourne’s film series “Killing us Softly,” she ascertains that most advertisements “…dehumanize women and turn them into objects portraying them as vulnerable, weak, and fragile.”(2008)
Conclusions
Advertisers are bombarding us with the use of sexuality in their advertisements; the ethicality of this practice is pushing the limits with the American Marketers Association code of ethics. As we have stated, advertisers are going above and beyond to create a loyal customer and sell products anyway they can. Sex sells; therefore, they use it to their advantage, not keeping in mind what effects this will have on all parties directly or indirectly involved. Whether or not you believe this is morally acceptable, advertisers are not sticking closely to the boundaries they themselves have set, creating an ethical dilemma.
Now of course advertisers and marketers are going to say that we as the consumers “vote with our dollars,” in that if we buy a product and that product is being marketed using sexual imagery, they will say that we are supporting and agreeing with the marketing strategy. Yet some products, such as body wash or tooth-paste are staple items. Now whether or not sex is used in a tooth-paste commercial, we will still purchase it for our daily use thereby causing distorted results.
Resolution
According to Chris Black, marketing teacher at Salt Lake Community College “…we haven’t even reached the top of the pendulum swing compared to what is happening in Europe.” (2011) We need to decide now as individuals, families, and citizens what the limit will be and we need to make the marketers and advertisers hold true to their “so-called” code of ethics. We need to do all in our power to make them adhere to their:
…highest professional ethical norms and ethical values implied by (their) responsibility toward…customers…and the host community.” (Grewal 2010)
We need to not buy into the “false realities” created by advertisers and we can speak out against it; simply get involved. Petition for “real” models, real people, and reality in general instead of fantasy laced commercials. A very effective wake-up call could be simply turning off the TV during commercials and half-time intervals during sporting events. We can do it!
Sources
Advertising Age. Advertisement. 15 Aug. 2011. Web. Oct, 2011.
http://adage.com/article/news/hooters-cmo-mcneil-talks-sex-appeal-american/229258/>.
Askar, Jamshid Ghazi. “Home Invasion.” Deseret News [Salt Lake City] 14 Oct. 2011. Print
Black, Christopher. “Advertising.” Personal Interview. 12 Oct. 2011.
Ciulla, Joanne B., Clancy Martin, and Robert C. Solomon.
“The Art of Seduction.” Honest Work a Business Ethics Reader. 2nd ed. Print.
Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. “Ethical Norms and Values for Marketers, Retrieved
fromhttp://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages.Statement%200f%20Ethics.aspx (accessed April 21, 2010).” Marketing. 3rd ed. Print.
Hayek, Friedrich von. (1961). The non sequitur of the “Dependence Effect.” Honest Work
"Mission." Hooters.com. Hooters, 2008. Web. 30 Oct. 2011.
<http://www.hooters.com/Mission.aspx>.
“Conservative.” Tineye.com. 30 Oct. 2011
<http://www.tineye.com/search/8597a649b955f507f6b309d62282626b2898e26c/?sort=size&order=desc>
Funny Commercials.com
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Reflection Memo
DATE: December 15, 2011
TO: Professor Melodee Lambert
FROM: Robynn Clayton
SUBJECT: Reflection Memo, Business 1040
In the fall semester of 2011 I had the chance to take Business 1040. This class is all about ethics at work, we spent the majority of class learning how to determine if the businesses we work for now and will work for in the future are operating in a positive ethical manner. It provided different scenarios and examples and taught us to view things from a different point of view.
During this class we had to do a term project, we had to pick a topic and find the ethical issues within topic focusing solely on the business aspect. My partner and I picked the topic the use of sex in advertising. We researched how marketers decide what is enough and what is too much as far as sex in advertising, as well as the ethicality of it. This project took a lot of time and resources to make it successful, credible, and valid. Some of my other classes helped me along with this process. I really enjoyed doing this type of research it brought many different emotions to the surface, but it taught me how to be unbiased toward a specific subject.
This memo summarizes three different areas of my term project and how it relates to different parts of my life.
Summary of Lessons Learned
Connection Between Term Project and Other Classes
As the semester progressed I noticed there were many similarities between Business 1040 and Communications 1010. First being they focus on business and the people who make the business run. My term project was the use of sex in advertising. Advertisements are everywhere you turn, it could be a poster, commercial, ad in the paper, etc. they are bombarding and sometimes overbearing. In Communications 1010 I learned how communicate with others in the work place constructively so whatever the problem is can be solved in the most effective manner. I connect the two because if I were to ever be a marketer I would know how to go about explaining to my employers or employees the ethical consideration they should take when creating advertisements that would have the company’s name on them.
I have taken Psychology classes for a couple semesters now and my term project has a lot to do with Psychology. It was really difficult to separate the two; my mind was stuck on the psychological aspect of things instead of the business aspect. They are so similar, but different enough to change the whole view of the project. Psychology is all about the mind and how it plays into things and my term project, the use of sex in advertising, is all about making something appealing to humans by manipulating their minds to make it appealing and sex does that. Sex sells bottom line, sex is for the most part intriguing to the human mind combine the two and you have a successful advertisement at the price of human worth and value.
Connection Between Term Project and Interests
I have many young family members that I think about, and have concern toward what they view on television in books on billboards, and what they take from it. I want to protect them as much as I can. I look at my oldest nephew who is twelve and he is starting to get those hormones and I want him to respect girls and women and value their worth. The advertisements I see on television and in the paper show women to be vulnerable, weak, and fragile. I look at my nieces and with each passing day they are becoming older and more beautiful, I don’t want any person to look at them as anything less than independent and with respect.
From the research I conducted there was an abundance of information I learned that I wouldn’t have paid attention to had I not picked this specific topic to do my paper on.
I now pay more attention to the advertisements I see, I focus on what is being sold and how they are going about bringing attention to the product and if it’s the most ethical approach. I feel as though I will never view advertisements with the same ignorance as I did before. I can’t ignore the screaming picture in front of me and what different interpretations different people would take from it.
Term Project and Ethics at Work
It took a lot of time for me to change my mind set when I was doing my term project. I couldn’t figure out the business ethics side of it, I kept thinking about the psychological side of things. I really learned how to dissect the information and research I was finding and break it down so I could view it from another prospective. My research and partner taught me how to look at all businesses from a business ethics point of view and not a personal one. There is nothing personal about business, most people are in it for the money and those who aren’t, are few and far between.
DATE: December 15, 2011
TO: Professor Melodee Lambert
FROM: Robynn Clayton
SUBJECT: Reflection Memo, Business 1040
In the fall semester of 2011 I had the chance to take Business 1040. This class is all about ethics at work, we spent the majority of class learning how to determine if the businesses we work for now and will work for in the future are operating in a positive ethical manner. It provided different scenarios and examples and taught us to view things from a different point of view.
During this class we had to do a term project, we had to pick a topic and find the ethical issues within topic focusing solely on the business aspect. My partner and I picked the topic the use of sex in advertising. We researched how marketers decide what is enough and what is too much as far as sex in advertising, as well as the ethicality of it. This project took a lot of time and resources to make it successful, credible, and valid. Some of my other classes helped me along with this process. I really enjoyed doing this type of research it brought many different emotions to the surface, but it taught me how to be unbiased toward a specific subject.
This memo summarizes three different areas of my term project and how it relates to different parts of my life.
Summary of Lessons Learned
Connection Between Term Project and Other Classes
As the semester progressed I noticed there were many similarities between Business 1040 and Communications 1010. First being they focus on business and the people who make the business run. My term project was the use of sex in advertising. Advertisements are everywhere you turn, it could be a poster, commercial, ad in the paper, etc. they are bombarding and sometimes overbearing. In Communications 1010 I learned how communicate with others in the work place constructively so whatever the problem is can be solved in the most effective manner. I connect the two because if I were to ever be a marketer I would know how to go about explaining to my employers or employees the ethical consideration they should take when creating advertisements that would have the company’s name on them.
I have taken Psychology classes for a couple semesters now and my term project has a lot to do with Psychology. It was really difficult to separate the two; my mind was stuck on the psychological aspect of things instead of the business aspect. They are so similar, but different enough to change the whole view of the project. Psychology is all about the mind and how it plays into things and my term project, the use of sex in advertising, is all about making something appealing to humans by manipulating their minds to make it appealing and sex does that. Sex sells bottom line, sex is for the most part intriguing to the human mind combine the two and you have a successful advertisement at the price of human worth and value.
Connection Between Term Project and Interests
I have many young family members that I think about, and have concern toward what they view on television in books on billboards, and what they take from it. I want to protect them as much as I can. I look at my oldest nephew who is twelve and he is starting to get those hormones and I want him to respect girls and women and value their worth. The advertisements I see on television and in the paper show women to be vulnerable, weak, and fragile. I look at my nieces and with each passing day they are becoming older and more beautiful, I don’t want any person to look at them as anything less than independent and with respect.
From the research I conducted there was an abundance of information I learned that I wouldn’t have paid attention to had I not picked this specific topic to do my paper on.
I now pay more attention to the advertisements I see, I focus on what is being sold and how they are going about bringing attention to the product and if it’s the most ethical approach. I feel as though I will never view advertisements with the same ignorance as I did before. I can’t ignore the screaming picture in front of me and what different interpretations different people would take from it.
Term Project and Ethics at Work
It took a lot of time for me to change my mind set when I was doing my term project. I couldn’t figure out the business ethics side of it, I kept thinking about the psychological side of things. I really learned how to dissect the information and research I was finding and break it down so I could view it from another prospective. My research and partner taught me how to look at all businesses from a business ethics point of view and not a personal one. There is nothing personal about business, most people are in it for the money and those who aren’t, are few and far between.