Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public. Discuss.

In a country of a largely illiterate and semi-literate population, like India, it is quite easy for a smart, educated, trained advertising professional to dupe the poor, unsuspecting common man.  The glitz and glamour of a slick advertisement, with the face of a popular film star or a Cricket player and you have a deadly mix for which the gullible commoner is bound to fall prey.  

TOBACCO AND LIQUOR:

These are possibly the most abused forms of consumer exploitation at the hands of manufacturers and advertisers.  Governments all over the world have not been able to put a ban on cigarette and liquor advertising, for there is a lot of revenue that accrues to the Exchequer from the sale of these products.  The boundary between the truth and deception is most grossly violated in the ads for cigarettes and liquor. Consider the following two ads:

"Making smoking 'safe' for smokers." BONDED TOBACCO COMPANY

"If you smoke, please smoke Carlton." CARLTON CIGARETTES

Will these ads not cause consumption? Some would argue that the Carlton advertisement is better than the Bonded advertisement. But the fact remains that both of them encourage smoking, which is detrimental to the health of consumers.

Consumers in these ads are projected as stylish, suave, educated, healthy heroes.  Sort of people young ones should emulate.  In this case the boundary between truth and deception is well defined.  Everyone knows that these products can ruin health, yet there is no stopping the advertisers or the manufacturers.  We are all aware of the resistance being faced by the enforcement agencies in the matter of printing health warnings on cigarette packs.  In the U.S., though, they have done it on matchboxes instead!  The Health Minister of India has banned smoking in public places and the government agencies are busy collecting penalties from people caught smoking.  A brilliant money-making idea indeed!

WEIGHT LOSS:

According to the U.S. Surgeon General, overweight and obesity have reached epidemic proportions in the United States. As a result, at any given time, tens of millions of consumers are trying to lose weight and spending billions of dollars each year on weight loss products and services. Too often, however, these products do not provide the advertised results. The only reason why an overweight person would not respond to a weight loss offer is that he or she doesn't believe it. And typically most overweight people have tried to lose weight with various means and have failed. So, each time they try something and fail, the credibility of the product gets stretched a little further. It's that much more difficult for them to believe again.

FOOD INDUSTRY:

In China recently, baby milk powder claimed the life of four innocent children and rendered thousands of others ill.  The fallout of the incident has been devastating.  The fact that the spurious product was advertised and sold as 'baby milk powder' made the matter so serious that the question of morality in advertising has once again taken center stage in the minds of people all over the world.  Kids’ cereals, fruit juices, ice creams, Burgers, Noodles are advertised as wholesome food and we are all falling prey to the dubious claims.  Funnily enough, most consumers are wary of both the manufacturers and advertiser, yet they continue to patronize such products.  Such is the lure of misleading ads!

DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS:

Deception in advertising for dietary supplements is rampant.  Unscrupulous manufacturers, some of whom internationally reputed, mislead consumers into believing that mere consumption of a certain product manufactured by them would ensure good health and prevention from diseases.  If a pharmaceutical major were to be believed, it makes sense to take beta-carotene and vitamins E and C to reduce one’s risk of heart disease, cancer, and cataracts. Another ad for multivitamin-and-mineral formulation gets due attention for it “contains the complete antioxidant group...more complete from A to zinc,". Only one problem: you don't get much. You can't tell how much or how little you're getting. Whether antioxidants "strengthen the body's natural defences against cell damage," as the ad claims, is also debatable. But the customers get taken in anyway and the manufacturers are laughing all the way to the Bank.

WORDPLAY:

When Bill Clinton was asked in 1992 if he had ever smoked marijuana, he told reporters that he had never broken the laws of the country. That sounded like “no”, but of course it wasn’t.  When the Press finally decoded the evasion, Clinton admitted that he had smoked marijuana in England, although he never inhaled.  That was a classic case of evasive wordplay that has become the method of choice for modern day advertisers.  They lie with words, numbers and images.  They use puns and double entendres to stretch the meaning of words and use fine print to mislead. Half-truths, sometimes even downright lies, are dished out by the advertisers. In India, there was this tricky wordplay in an advertisement titled “World Class Holidays at Down-to-Earth Prices”.  It was deceptive advertising at its best. Or worst? The hotel rates were advertised as starting from Rupees 500 on twin-sharing basis.  On checking out the fine print it was revealed that, in fact, that was the room rent for a hotel in a Godforsaken part of India no one ever visited.!

TV TO SHARE BLAME:

Television advertising is impacting the consumers in a big way.  Fakery and illusion are used to alter the way a product looks to make it more appealing. Tomato ketchup looks thicker and yummier. Sound effects, digitally manipulated images, visual fantasy and false claims are used to win over viewers. Others use glamour or sex, or they try to evoke a sense of empathy and sincerity in an effort to emotionally lure consumers into buying a product. Many advertisers use humour to win over viewers and reduce the pretentiousness of the message.

But the most common form is commercials that convey a sense of life as a celebration. These ads try to inspire in viewers a sense that they can escape from the flawed and mundane state of everyday existence. Many television commercials are false promises that make everything seem better than it is. Audiences feel increasingly trapped in a culture of con artistry in which they are surrounded by sensory images, stories, rhetoric and presentations that are intended to get them to buy something. Most viewers know it is all a manipulation, and many still respond by buying the product as if they have been taken in by the message.

HUMOR AS MASK:

Humor remains one of the most poorly understood (Sutherland and Sylvester 2000), and yet at the same time, one of the most prevalent of communications strategies employed in advertising (Alden, Mukherjee, and Hoyer 2000). The role of humor in masking deceptive claims should come as no surprise. It reflects the very essence of persuasive advertising as being able to influence its audience in the same way as the "artist and the priest, by creating symbols that promise more than what is observable" (van de Ven 2001).

The case for focusing on humor appeals is further strengthened by the fact that unlike other ethically contested appeal forms such as sexual appeals, humor has traditionally evaded ethical enquiry. Humor is also rooted in a series of complex subjective and socially or culturally constructed values and beliefs. In general, the use of such appeals reduces the risk of unethical perception or offense, but as a result, may lead to less stringent control. Consequently, there is greater opportunity for advertisers to misuse legitimate appeals forms such as humor.

NOTHING WRONG:

Some would argue that a wee bit of deception in advertising is okay.  It causes no or negligible harm. Every product cannot be the best in the world.  From an advertiser’s point of view, a product has to be made to look better than it actually is. After all, many of our admen make their living (mansions and Mercedes’) out of this profession.  Deception is practiced in almost every walk of life, one way or the other. It is unfair to single out advertising for harsh words.  Others would even claim that there is no such thing as deception in advertising, and that it is actually a legitimate art form of persuasion practiced by professionals!  

QUESTION OF ETHICS:

Advertising is constantly bombarded by criticism. It is accused of encouraging materialism and consumption, of stereotyping, of causing us to purchase items for which we have no need, of taking advantage of children, of manipulating our behavior, using sex to sell, and generally contributing to the downfall of our social system.

Ethics refers to moral principles that define right and wrong behaviour.  The complexity of ethical issues in advertising requires the advertiser to make a conscious effort to deal with each situation.  This presumes personal standards of what is right and what is wrong.    When mistakes are made by advertisers, the media has an obligation to serve as an ethics watchdog of the advertising it airs or prints?

In May 1998, the Hartford Courant refused to publish an ad promoting Janet Jackson's Velvet Rope Tour because the advertisement showed "ample cleavage".  It was not just that the advertisement might perpetuate the stereotype of women as sex objects or love slaves.  The Paper's refusal reflected the publisher's sense of obligation to the newspaper's readership, especially to the "homes of readership with young children". The Paper took a position in the controversy over the impact advertising has on society's tastes, values and lifestyle.

Deception, many would argue, is intrinsic to all human interaction.  Broadly speaking, there are two general approaches to measure the ethical and moral dimension of a subject -- the idealist and the realist schools. “The idealists make moral and ethical distinctions based on an absolute set of standards        . If disinformation and falsehoods are wrong, all examples of such behavior are wrong.  There are no exceptions. The realists or pragmatists argue that the question ultimately boils down to a cost-benefit analysis.  Does the harm done by being deceptive outweigh the good the deception will accomplish?  This school also believes that there are potential ethical costs inherent to any deception exercise. An organization which indulges in disinformation loses a corresponding amount of credibility.  Indeed, if one is practicing deception in order to affect public or international opinion, the blow back from loss of credibility can easily prove quite damaging

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SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY:

Keeping in view the larger interest of the society, the manufacturer, advertiser and the media should exercise self-restraint and self-discipline.  They should act responsibly and ensure that there is no deliberate attempt to create false beliefs. Otherwise, besides causing harm of one kind or the other to consumers, they will also be undermining their own credibility.  There is considerable mistrust of the intent of the advertiser as it is. Even the relatively truthful advertisements are now being perceived as attempts to manipulate customer behavior.  Advertisers must remember that there are some extremely vulnerable sections of people, including young children and elderly persons, who could be harmed severely by reading or looking at deceptive advertisement.  A number of young children in India have, tragically, lost their life while imitating in real life the heroics (jumping off a hilltop or driving at breakneck speeds) performed by their icons in advertisements.  This is not the kind of advertising the society needs.

ENFORCEMENT:

Identification of the boundary between truth and deception in advertising can be done by arriving at a standard definition of deception, which should be acceptable, or made applicable, to all concerned.  It is the responsibility of the Government of a country to put in place an effective mechanism to measure the extent of deception in an advertisement and to deal with it effectively and in a structured manner.  In cases where ads are considered to be misleading, unfair or having the potential of causing harm to customers, immediate steps should be initiated to get the ad corrected. Besides, appropriate action against offenders should be provided in the law so as to serve as a deterrent to the potentially mischievous advertisers. It may, however, be added that the law alone cannot ensure the level of honesty and trust in business or advertising. No legal system can effectively police or deter rampant universal dishonesty in any walk of life. The legal system does not have the means to prosecute all dishonest business people. In order for this to be the case, most people must voluntarily adhere to norms of honesty on moral grounds.

CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT:

The customers should themselves get together in formally constituted Groups or Associations to raise voice against such malpractices.  Like many other countries, where there is a tendency on part of the advertisers to cross the boundary, a number of Consumer Groups have already sprung up, which have helped in controlling the menace to some extent.  The Governments have set up Consumer Courts in various parts of the country with the objective of redressing complaints from customers regarding deficient products or service.  The objective is to restrain the advertiser or the manufacturer from making claims and extending promises which they cannot or do not intend to keep, as also to deal firmly with those who are found to be resorting to such unethical practices.

CONCLUSION

Advertising is just one source of information available to the consumer, who is in touch with many other influences, such as friends, reference groups, consumer associations, institutions and government agencies. With so many channels of obtaining information, it seems possible for reasonably aware consumers to make a distinction between the truth and deception in advertising.  But the smart, manipulative advertisers, equipped with disinformation, finances and modern tools & technology are working overtime to hoodwink the customers into buying products they do not really need. The mind-games are well and truly on, and consumers at large are finding it extremely difficult to withstand the onslaught. A discerning consumer, however, will not easily become a victim of the machinations of the advertiser.  He will wait and watch the performance of the product.  He will obtain his feedback from all possible sources about the quality, effectiveness or price-reasonableness of the product, and not merely depend on an advertisement to form his opinion.  

The weeping prophet said it centuries ago: "The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked -

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