Advertising Ethics (Essay Sample)

ADVERTISING ETHICS
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Advertising Ethics
Ethics is a branch that involves knowledge and deals with moral principles. Advertising just like in other fields of study has ethics that should be highly maintained. Ethics in advertising is very important, and the players of ethics are mainly the marketers, advertisement agencies, government as well as customers in other cases. However, despite the fact that ethics in advertising are clearly spelt out there can occur dilemmas that can affect the moral principles of the players when dealing with each other in respect to advertising (Spence & Van, 2005).
Ethical Problem
In this situation, the ethical dilemma or ethical problem is the issue of non-disclosure of important information to consumers, which in most cases may determine whether the consumers buy the product or not.
Concepts
Ethics in advertising involves three moral principles which are respect for the truth, respect for social responsibility and treatment of each person in a dignified way. In this paper, the ethical dilemma will involve the principle that states in advertising there should be respect for the truth.
Information Gathered about the Problem
In the United States of America, certain laws have been devised to protect the consumers’ rights such as Consumer protection laws. The laws are also meant to enhance fair trade as well as provide ample information about products in the marketplace to consumers. In so doing the consumers can access information that may be unavailable from the advertisements provided either in commercials or newspapers. Additionally, there exist advertising regulations that spell out how advertisement activities should be carried out. In the USA for example, health-related advertisements and false advertisements are the highly regulated. Non -disclosure of information which is done on purpose falls under the category of false advertising. Free Trade Commission in the United States of America is responsible for the regulation of advertising and this done at the federal level (Blacklock, 2007).
Point of View
Many organizations, however, are not observant of the regulations put by the regulatory bodies thus ends up not disclosing important information when advertising concerning the products a situation that leads to the misleading of the consumers. Additionally, disclosing information such as effects of using products when advertising is important as it enables a consumer to purchase products that pose minimum risks to his or her health. In most cases advertisers and marketers lack to disclose negative information regarding the product so as to maintain or increase the level of sales.
Moral Reasoning
To take a position on the ethics dilemma question justifying the actions we are going to focus on theories of moral philosophy. The theory of consequentialist states that when considering whether a certain act is morally wrong or right it’s only the outcome and consequences that matter. Thus in the case of marketers and advertisers, the increase in profits gained from non-disclosure of certain information renders the act morally right as the outcome is positive in nature. The second theory is called the utilitarianism which states that an action is considered to be morally right if it increases the good while reducing the bad. In this situation, the act of false advertising increases profits to business which is a good thing but lacks to reduce the negative effects such as health risks attained from purchasing products whose health effe...