Introduction
The use of advertisements is one of the marketing strategies used by most businesses to attract customers. The significance of ethical practices in advertising is to address issues such as morality, justice and knowing the good and the bad. Ethics in marketing seeks to promote honesty, fairness and responsibility in all types of advertising. However this can be a difficult subject since each individual has a different definition on what is wrong or right. Most companies use unethical methods in advertising to gain a competitive advantage.
Companies that aim at improving the image of their brand and develop long term relationships with customers, the kind of unethical practices can quickly lead to failure. There are various types of unethical advertising which includes surrogate advertising, exaggeration, puffery, unverified claims, stereotyping women, false brand comparisons and the use of children in advertising (Marketing Schools, 2012). This paper seeks to discuss the unethical practices most businesses use to advertise and market their brand and image.
Surrogate advertising is an unethical method of advertising where businesses remind their customers on certain products indirectly such as alcohol or cigarette. Surrogate advertising is advertising which embeds a brand or product message inside an advertisement which is ostensibly for another brand or product.
One of the major reasons why organizations use this form of advertising is to circumvent a ban on direct advertisements. Many countries restrict the use of alcohol and tobacco marketing and therefore these businesses use this form of advertising to market their products. The techniques used include sponsoring community events, issuing public service announcements or sponsoring various sports teams.
The use of exaggeration is another unethical method of marketing. Some companies use false claims to gain popularity or give false descriptions on a particular product that are not featured. According to Hanna, (2007) a good example is the Lynx Dark Temptation advert which shows a normal person using the product and later turns into a chocolate man who attracts women. The advertisement quickly grabs the audience’s attention and deceives them on the effect of the product.
Although a sales message sent to customers is part of advertising, sending excess and continuous messages to customer may lead to spam. Spam is practice of flooding customers with an onslaught of advertisements; this occurs especially where customers are not given permission to contact them. This practice may anger customers rather than attract them to the business, some of this practices may include using automatic dialers to contact potential customers even without their due authority others may include email spam and robot calling, a robot call is usually associated with calls from recorded message other than a live person and this is especially used by marketers which is illegal.
Women are portrayed as sex objects. In most advertisements, women are stereotyped and the western culture has played a major role (Tygart, nod). The culture has changed the culture of feminine beauty; research suggests that women who have feminist beliefs are less influenced by these sexist advertisements than traditional women; the viewers’ perception of their body image is moderated if they leaned toward feminist beliefs.
One of two advertisements that featured women portrayed them as sex objects. The sexual victimization of women uses to be only in pornography, but it has now found expression not only in films and television shows, but in advertising as well. The exposure of women’s bodies occurred about four times as often compared to the exposure of men’s bodies in magazines.
Women who are sexualized are more likely to appear as purely decorative objects in men’s magazines compared to women’s magazines. Sexually explicit programming and advertising is devastating to the self-esteem, this creates unrealistic expectations of gender portrayal, such as being thin, beautiful and having designer clothes, make-up and accessories. The use of women as sex objects is related to the development of eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression, and negative feelings regarding sexuality.
Children consume huge amounts of advertising without being able to evaluate it objectively (Powell, 2010). Most of the companies use children’s innocence to conduct most of their unethical marketing practices. The vast majority of these advertisements are purposely geared towards children, using tricks like cartoon characters and sweepstakes prizes to make the sugary cereals and fatty hamburgers all the more eye-catching.
As children’s online doings has elevated, very big corporations like McDonald’s have also planned websites, inclusive of video games that teach children brand identification, that are getting many young people every year. The companies use children innocently to market the products.
Companies use false brand comparisons to tarnish the competitor’s products. This method is considered unethical because the company uses the brand to gain a competitive advantage in the market. This shows dishonesty since every company should have its own tragedy to promote its own brand without interfering with the other businesses business. Diverse organizations manipulate different terms. They post competitors prices on their websites to persuade consumers in buying their products which are most likely cheaper.
Exploitation in marketing is way of manipulating people by exploiting their fears which is an unethical business practice. For instance exaggerating the risk customers may face so you can sell to them life cover insurance policies, this may also involve tricking the customers into buying overpriced products by extending their guarantee or warranty, according to Starmark, Demand media, he calls this “fear-sell” tactic and is immoral when targeted to people who are disadvantaged in some way. Exploitation as a way of marketing is mostly used by hawkers to sell their products because they do not have direct contact with customers and they do not have a strategic business place they may even sell defective products to unsuspecting customers.
A salesperson’s work in a company is to convince customers in order for them to consider buying their products but in some circumstances some sale salesperson may be overly aggressive which is unethical business practice an example is where a customer may be interested in buying a product but may ask for some more time to consider whether to buy or not, unethical salesperson might start bullying customers into making quick decisions by providing a false information for example how the product may go bad soon or how another customer is interested in that same product. A good salesperson would help a customer into making a more informed decisions rather than thinking on how to make quick sales at any cost.
Recommendations
When companies release unethical advertisements, it is sometimes difficult for them to fully regain their share in the market. The significance of releasing ethical advertisements is clear when the organization realizes that it would take a long period of concentrated focus on image building through doing well for their stakeholders and being seen to prosper, reputations can be destroyed very quickly.
Gopalkrishnan, & Murali, (2002) assert that every company should be aware that many individuals concentrate on negative publicity other than positive publicity. Advertising is justifiable for businesses because it really does help to popularize a brand, to sell products and make profit. People not knowing about products, brands, and their features and benefits would not be able to choose between the greatest varieties of products.
When a company realizes that it has recorded negative publicity, it should respond immediately. Having a direct response shows that the claim is supportive of the company; it may refute publicity without mentioning the validity of the initial information. Companies should familiarize themselves with the ethical framework. Avoiding unethical advertisements fosters a good reputation which is beneficial and enhances the company’s culture and improves sales.
Conclusion
In conclusion, most companies use advertisements to approach different people as they impact them differently. It is ethically wrong to use methods that manipulate other people. Advertisements are a powerful tool to control people’s minds and perceptions about a particular product or brand. Most of them force consumers to acquire products that they do not use which demonstrates the power of advertising.
The use of prices discriminates a particular group of consumers who are either middle income earners or low income earners this is because they have limited choice based on income, race and ethnicity. Negative marketing tactics make the company have a poor image; this is the reason why companies should avoid using unethical advertising tactics.
References
Gopalkrishnan, S., & Murali, R. (2002). India: campaign to tackle unethical promotion. EssentialDrug Monitor, 31, 22.
Hanna, J. (2007, December 7). Authenticity over Exaggeration: The New Rule in Advertising — HBS Working Knowledge. Retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5812.html
Marketing Schools. (2012). Ethical Marketing | What is Ethical Marketing? Retrieved from http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/ethical-marketing.html
Powell, M. (2010, September 8). 7 Highly Disturbing Trends in Junk Food Advertising to Children | Alternet. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/food/7-highly-disturbing-trends-junk-food-advertising-children
Tygart, D. (nod.). Depicting Women as Sex Objects In Television Advertising: Effects OnBody Dissatisfaction. Retrieved from http://people.eku.edu/winslowm/psy300/tygart.htm