Nowadays we live in an interconnected and globalized world in which all business owners are fighting to have the best position among competitors. More clearly, we live in a world where brands exist everywhere we look, because all companies want to communicate with their customers or with their target market to influence their decisions toward its products or services. Companies or business men want to obtain greater earnings in less time, and usually this requires using the manipulation tactic by showing all the “possible” benefits their product can give, even if sometimes they need to “lie” or to hide the truth, just for obtaining economic rewards. That is why I think ethics in advertising is important, because even if advertisers have to influence people´s buying decisions, they have to do it with honesty. They should have to tell you the complete truth about the product features even if they are trying to convince you to acquire a certain product. Yet, most of the time this does not happens as it should need to be and as a result ads are just made to make people buy things they do not really need at all and that they just consequently buy them to be part of the brand. They are just made to manipulate or to create a stimulus toward a product that is completely unnecessary, such as prescription drugs which are used by people who think they will not be able to deal with their problems, without have not tried them. Just because they saw a commercial or an ad about this issue that was really appealing to them, they think they ought to buy the product to feel better as the guy that appeared on the commercial.
Another great example where Ethics in business arises is in the food industry, because although restaurants as McDonalds need to have promotion to stay in the mind of its consumers, some argue that this kind of publicity exhort people, in particular children and teenagers to have a fat meal which contributes to the childhood obesity, because most of McDonalds campaigns encourage overconsumption by promoting its food products for “everyday” eating. I believe that targeting this kind of unhealthy food to young people is not the most ethical thing to do if you take care of them, but I also think that the company is just trying to form a brand image in the consumer and it is trying to sell its products. So as result I think that neither the company, nor the children are guilty. The ones that have most of the fault are the parents which are moved by their kids to have that type of fast food every day.
There are other controversial issues that come to mind related to unethical marketing tools, as trying to position credit cards in the minds of kids. But, although I do not completely agree with this fact, because they are teaching children to buy and buy even if they do not have any money available just as their parents do. (They are hiding the fact that they would have to pay when their accounts arrive.) I think they are just teaching the real way it works in life. Even if their own purpose is to sell more and to create a greater brand image, they are just doing their job.
So in conclusion, I would say that definitively in today´s advertising it is really difficult to observe a completely ethical commercial or ad, because advertisers just want to make products more appealing to consumer's eyes by disguising them. How are they going to be able to make you know their product, if it is not only by advertising? So in my opinion most of the fault is of parents who leave their children in front of the TV for hours, action that makes children more vulnerable to acquire everything they watch on their favorite channels. So I can just say that marketing firms will never stop doing advertisements so it is up to us to make the right decision on whether or not to buy their products. Meanwhile Ad agencies need to be careful with how far they take their advertisements, because society can be offended by these into receiving wrong messages from the ads exposed.
No comments:
Post a Comment