ADPR 3100 1nd Edition Lecture 27 Outline of Previous Lecture I Legal environment laws and regulations of Adversiting II Advertising defined as commercial speech III First amendment rights IV FTC V Deception vs puffery Outline of Current Lecture I Examples of legal and ethical issues II What are ethical issues III Legal issues vs ethical issues IV moral myopia Current Lecture Examples o Walgreens pharmacies o Claimed its store brand boosted immunity system Snapchat claims User photos disappear forever after a few seconds Will notify if someone takes a screenshot of a photo to keep it Only gathers a minimal amount of info about each user These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Deceptive claims Banned from making these claims FDC Required to start a privacy program to be monitored for 20 years by a third party company Legal environment o First amendment trend toward greater freedom for companies in corporate speech o Regulations in industry self interest o Laws reg concerned only with truthfulness o What about pressures Ethical issues o From legal issues to ethical issues o Examples of ethical dilemmas o Ethics in the workplace Moral myopia Moral muteness Active ethics Legal vs ethical o o Legal responsibilities Don t lie Issues of deception involve demonstrable provable lies Ethical responsibilities truth only part of advertising s power Evoke feeling Issues of manipulation Moral conduct Pressures Not what can we get away with what is the right things to do Ethical dilemmas Advertising in schools o o o Pressures on school administrator Decreasing funding makes it hard to say no approved by perceived authority Forms Signage on sports fields Exclusive product contracts coca cola sole provider of soft drinks on campus Lesson plans m ms math lessons Channel One Lend satellite dish VCRs and TV sets Must show 12 min newscast 2min advertising everyday Is it okay to make kids watch ads during school Require students to spend class time to watch ads Daily exposure 6 million teens 8 000 middle Physical quantifiable cigarette smoking Top cause of cancer deaths in US 152 000 billion Ethics in the workplace How do advertising people make sense of ethical dilemmas Drumwright and Murphy 2004 o 1interviews 29 agencies 8 cities o Varied departments ages genders o Concluded advertising people cant see ethical problems see primarily as only affecting themselves anyone stealing my ideas Only level advertising people see of ethical dilemmas o Ethical problems at other levels not seen Organizational knowing deception Societal unintended consequences Moral myopia even if I tried to put out an unethical ad no consumer would be dumb enough to believe it all we do is reflect society back to itself o Rationalization going native identify too closely with the client I don t have a lot of time to sit and think about if the people who make this thing are really evil Rationalization the first amendment misunderstanding if I succeed my clients succeed So it doesn t feel like stretching the truth is doing anything wrong Rationalization what is legal is ethical how could I develop a code of ethics for my agency It would go against the first amendment Rationalization passing the buck its really hard to be unethical in this business we have to run everything by our lawyers Rationalization consumers are smart Rationalization the ostrich syndrome stick head in a hole Ways advertising professionals explain away ethical dilemmas to what they are doing moral muteness im just providing a service to my clients But on a personal level I sometimes find what they want to do very offensive Rationalization compartmentalization compartmentalize their ethical awareness only okay to say something outside the workplace if I want to stay in business I must give clients what they want ethical advertising means bland ineffective work Rationalization ethics is bad for business belief if we got bent out of shape over every ethical issue we couldn t get anything done o Rationalization The client is always right problem is no longer professionals they are clients butlers Rationalization Pandora s box syndrome once you open up ethics lid nothing will be able to get done Ethically active Agencies that openly encourage ethical decisions and actions Recognize moral issues and bring them up to agency and the client Recognition Communication Saying no tell client to take business elsewhere ethically empowering Moral imagination Key points o o Legal realm Behaviorism protect people Rationalism provide dependable info Ethics Only addressed fully by culturalism Recognition of negative and positive pressures