Misleading Advertising, A Shameful Future
The Ethics of Advertising: A Concern for the Future
The advertising industry today often lacks a focus on ethics. Agencies and clients prioritize ROI, performance, and strategies, leaving ethics by the wayside.
The issue is that ethics become a priority when something terrible happens to the value of the brand, whether it is a scandal that your product is suspected or proven to have caused cancer and other diseases (see the cases of DUPONT and Teflon or the tobacco companies), or that an OTC drug causes serious, irreversible side effects, or something more innocent, like giving your children daily calorie intakes that are higher than their bodies can healthfully support, remember. From the 1960s until about the year 2000, cereals gave us the impression that they were nutritious and just what our bodies needed. Surprise! Instead, obesity, sugar addiction, diabetes, etc., emerged.
The effects of these items and their advertising efforts were felt by several generations. I clearly recall a Spanish programme that featured old ads and offered critique from various angles. In particular, I recall one from the 1970s in which a toddler was eating spoonfuls of CONDENSED MILK, and the host of the programme stated, “This may today be called child abuse.”
This is a call to action to pause, consider whether we are producing goods and promoting them in a way that can reach consumers in the future without making us feel bad, and keep in mind that our guiding principle is that everything we do should benefit our clients. Additionally, it will undoubtedly be a successful business.
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