Advertising Ethics

Companies in the 21st century face challenges related to ethical dilemmas in the complicated commercial world. In this scenario, corporations have established strategies for developing codes of conduct and ethics that all members must comply by by implied action. Integrity, trust, and even more complex challenges like decision-making, accommodating diversity, governance, and compliance should be governed by the core ethical principles. Typically, trust and honesty are the main issues that businesses have. Integrity is fundamentally understood as the implementation of honesty in business dealings and pledges regarding how customers will be treated. Customers will thus recognize the company’s unwavering commitment when they do in order to their business practices, they develop a high level of trust. The success of the company then depends on the relationship of trust between the customer and the business. The purpose of this essay is to distinguish the ethical issues pertaining advertisement targeted to children.

In marketing, the dimension of ethics that advertisers should portray is morality marketing behind their promotion. Moreover, the way salespeople present their advertisement should be subjected to the results it will bring to the targeted customers. However, broadcasting is usually done in ways that incline the value of the product or service. A good example is a publication that targets children. This type of announcement is violated if its credibility, privacy or integrity is recognized as an unethical issue. In this viewpoint, it then raises problems that cluster with inseparable arguments of whether or not children understood the marketing principle used (Winston 11). Concurrently, if policymakers, political and regulatory controls don’t cease every advertisement meant for children, kids will not notice any adverse aspects of the promoted items. Lastly, do marketers talk to the parents before deciding to promote the product?

As to say, this shows that children markets are fragmented to the point that marketer’s take the advantage to scavenge more profits (Faith 1001). To make matters worse, advertisement pertaining children are only meant to manipulate the mindset of consumers. In other words as mentioned by Winston (11), children’s market is known to be a different arcade that involves users who rarely buy things. Without any doubt, this is the reality of the marketplace. Due to these issues, marketers come across great challenges from different authoritative bodies when it comes to advertising their products, particularly to the children marketplace. However, according to Frank & Henry (482), the effectiveness of marketing is governed by banners to demonstrate positive motives to both the authorities and consumers. Therefore, the only way marketers could produce a good advertisement, is by considering the unethical issues that could help them attain their objectives. To tackle this problem, this essay will further elaborate the intrinsic values of the 7ps that impact the highlighted ethical issues concerning the children’s industry.

Health issues in Children

Various issues have been noticed pertain advertising to children. Moreover, the one that is known to be the leading factor and is shamefully crowned is obesity which is the accumulation of overwhelming fat that impairs one’s health. In today’s world, several countries have the same challenge because instead of these kids engaging themselves with outside activities, they prefer spending their time watching TV. According to Caroline (147), children are equipped with the ability to justify what is right for them and what they desire when it comes to obtaining foods they have pitched from advertisement. Ironically, according to Jackie & Bette (75), these kids have segmented the programs as a vital business that they cannot afford to miss. Additionally, the matter is also supported by Scott & Aysen (299) that almost $10-12 billion is spent in the U.S on advertisements that target children to food. Every year, children are exposed to over 7,600 ads concerning candy, fast foods and cereals. Hence this is because vendors have seen the vulnerability in children and that’s why they penetrate to give vague information.

For instance, in the broadcasting mix viewpoint, companies like McDonald use its products, promotion tactics, and price to invite parents who have kids to dine for greater portions at lower prices. Furthermore, they regularly set the mindsets of these young ones by packaging unique toys and collectibles that come to together with the food they consume. Still, the idea of selling fast food is accompanied with a family adventure mainly when they have the meals together. Moreover, the company prints out the calorie count sheet to every customer to prove to them that if their food is appropriately consumed, it will not cause obesity. The impacts such advertisement is unforgiving because the aftermath is usually unethical because it brings health issues such as obesity to children.

Credibility and Deceptive Conducts to Advertisements

Apart from health concerns, there are other ethical issues that are associated with advertising to children. Many of the studies have substantial evidence that indicates that there is an unprecedented calm of access by advertising to a lot of innocent children. Countries such as Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway have put in a lot of effort towards the reducing and prohibiting of advertisements that target children (Tammo, Wilma and Britta 172). But even with these regulated markets, marketers still find a way of producing unwitting negative results that will put in jeopardy the integrity of the advertisement in a disingenuous manner. Another ethical issue is the, involvement of the children’s psychologist by marketers in their market research and is one that draws the attention of researchers. It is evident that psychologists are usually at their best in their profession as their services are for attacking the mind of children. Advertisement aims to make people feel that they are losers without their product and children tend to be very sensitive to this notion. The people and processes that are involved in marketing are unethical, and this is evident in the physical advertising itself. The fact is that marketers view children as cash machines which continuously generate profit for them. Therefore there is a deep need to develop stricter rules by the government and policymakers to curb the unhealthy advertising targeting children. This means that through the enhancing of credibility and reduction of the deceptive adverse there could be a chance of getting promising outcomes.

Conflict of Interest & Misleading Approach in Advertisements

The success of a trade is usually in the interest of the buyer, but many studies indicate that such interests are generally as a result of the unethical approaches by marketers and advertisers. They often take advantage of children’s desires by continuously embellishing children desires to the point of assimilating them as part of their market division. In real essence children are usually the best target, one that is unable to make precise decisions because of the information that they capture is misleading and conflicting with their real interests. In short advertisers and marketers are very good in limiting the alternatives of children to only their products (Paul 27). It is believed that if children are misled continuously from intricate advertisements at their early years, it could result in them adopting some undesirable social values like being materialistic. Since children cannot resist the desire to purchase products that are promoted to them through advertisements which are starred by celebrity kids the effect becomes very adverse. As a result, children will demand for all sorts of unnecessary products without caring, and parents will need to spend a significant amount of wasteful money. For this reason, many countries have prohibited famous people from going on air to promote a product. In early 2010 the Children’s Television Standards in Australia developed and set rules that using famous characters for promotion or to endorse commercial products was prohibited (Jamie and Andrew 2010, 1). McDonald is an excellent example of using kids to get more sales through collectibles and toys which would come with every meal. In their defense, they said that it was a way of providing fun for kids while they had their meals. This is misleading and conflicting as children want the toys and collectibles more than the food (Paul 10). Such ads are unethical because they ignore the outcomes that compromise the health of children because their food is junk food and the overspending of parents as they are forced to buy specific kid’s packages with designated prices and with no alternatives for the particular package.

One-on-One Marketing: Minor as a Target Issue

It is crucial for advertisers that children get impacted when they view their advertisements. This can be explained as subliminal which is a visual stimulus that gets quickly masked into the mind even before one gets the chance to process it and usually do not know when it takes place (Johan, Wolfgang and Jasper 793). For this advertisement to be useful, during the ad, there needs to be little to no distraction and is usually best when the children are alone and vulnerable. It cannot be denied that such exploitation of a child’s mind is unethical. A study that was conducted revealed that children spending alone had accounted for $14 billion in the United States (Lionel 2000, 326). A survey in the UK also showed that children have a lot of liberty in regards to spending and even their influence over their parents (Lionel 326). This is the reason why advertisers get an outcome that favors them when doing ads that target children. Many would suggest that parents should restrict or control what their children watch so that the understanding of the advertisement intent by the kids is not harmful. But evidence indicates that by having more healthier content in the advertisement it will be more effective in protecting children than having the parents control or restrict the children in regards to TV times (Jeffrey 1999, 114). It will be more beneficial to produce an advertisement that is healthy for the children in a manner that parents will give consent to them.

Recommendations

The responsibilities of advertisement are not all about banning but all about ethical issues for children. In this case, children are very vulnerable to the advancement of technology because before they enhance the transmission of the message, they are already the victims. Therefore, the advertiser must abide by the rules and regulations set by the code of conduct, ethics initiatives, and essential guidelines so that they do their best during marketing. For instance, if the project advertised is deemed as a ‘must-have’ item then it’s exclusively known as unethical.

The best way the promoters should follow is that they should have space for children’s future rather than having vigorous ads with the aim of getting money. This way, children are treated as informed consumers because they taught what the product is and why the advertisement chose to use the product. Consequently, they will also be enlightened about the segment of marketing and in return, they are left to be the decision makers. Literarily speaking, this means that kids will no longer be vulnerable to the promotion that usually took advantage of them. Also, since these kids know how to compare prices, products, and the publications, the undermining message behind marketing will not become a concerning part curly pertaining their health.

Parents and the authoritative bodies

Parents should also be part of what the advertisers tackle along their promotions. Parents should do this by educating the children of the whereabouts concerning the marketing strategies that are drawn by the marketers. This is only achieved when a learning milestone is set to the young. As a result, children will become aware of the broadcasting processes by identifying the terminology and content used in them. Moreover, because the authoritative bodies will be in place, there is always need for more emphasis when it comes to pursuing the unethical conducts. A good example is that rules and regulations should be governed in the TV advertisements to minimize direct messages to children.

Products placement and promotions should be identified, by the authorities and parents before they air out the program to the public. The fast food typhoon, on the other side, should adhere to the strict rules before providing differing strategies on how they are going to advertise. It is therefore clear that when there are cooperation from advertisers, more healthy products will be propelled while having reasonable prices to the general customer.

Conclusion

The overall aim of this comprehensive essay was to scrutinize how ethical issues exist in advertisements and the how the impact affects kids through various ways. The behavioral and judgments intentions are therefore necessary constructs to advertisers if they want to gain insights from kids. It is also clear that promoters should fill up their gap it helps in educating and realizing their targeted audience because of their overindulged products. So as to say, marketers must recognize that the boundaries concerning reasonable prices have already been breached and this should not dismiss the target due to the outcome of advertisements. Therefore the media have to be virtually impossible when it comes to this matter. As a result, if these companies take this as their responsibilities, then the accomplishment of advertising towards kids will be approachable and more ethical.

This paper has examined the issues that come with advertisements, particularly to children. A few challenges have been highlighted and resolutions made concerning the same. As a result, rules and regulations pertaining promotions of products are found to be the only way to make marketing successful. We have also seen that parents and the authorities have to be involved before a company releases any product to the public either through television or the internet.

Works cited

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