Defining Unethical Practices in Advertising

Ethics in advertising can sometimes be borderline between what is right or wrong. There are rules and guidelines in place for the advertising companies to follow so they don't upset or offend any viewers. But, what is as unethical advertising? Well, using advertising in a way that is misleading and uses false claims to get the public to buy the product they are trying to sell is unethical, because of its misuse of the information that is presented to the public. This article will show what is seemed to be unethical in advertising.

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Ads that are used in the political realm can sometimes be misleading and use false information or bend the truth to get the public to sway their votes towards them. An ad in the campaign for the election between McCain and Obama used an ad with misleading information. Such as, saying that a developer received $20 million in tax payers money, but the truth was there was no money received. This can be considered unethical as they are giving false information to the public, which is done a lot in political advertisement.

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An advertisement that is made should be able to identify what the targeted audience is. But, sometimes this is not always done. When advertising towards children it should be clear what the product is and what is for. As children can sometime misrepresent and not quite understand what the ad is saying, especially under the age of 12. However, some might say that it is unethical to target children under the age of 12 as, they may not understand what an ad is and view it in a way that they are not supposed to. However advertisement is constantly been shown for children like in campaigns for beverages and food in posters at schools and some debate if advertising in schools is unethical.

Just like advertisements in commercial or billboards, the internet has its own issues in advertising as well. As they can sometimes promote untrue claims and when this happens it can have a negative impact on their product and brand. There are ethical guidelines for problematic ads that can look an article, on the internet. Those ads can be misinterpreted with editorial content needs to be labeled, that is an advertisement. Otherwise it unethical when this isn't displayed. Using advertising in this way is misleading and it shows that view the consumer as naive, which is unethical.

By not putting the right amount of information makes the public believe something in a different way because of what has been said. This may lead them into a wrong direction and buying a product that is not right for them.

Using out right lies in advertising is part of unethical advertising and doesn't follow the guideline practices that they have to follow when demonstrating a product to the consumer. Lying about what the product, gives false information and makes them believe that something is true when it is not. Which should be avoided in advertising as it will eventually give them a bad reputation, because of its misuse of information.

Source: Articlealley, Merek Salzman