CHAPTER - 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction to the Topic

Ethical behaviour is the application of our understanding of what is good and right to the
activities and pursuits that we call business. In such business activities advertising is a powerful
tool. However, there is a perception that advertising is a world of make-believe where desires are
created making people by-pass their rational thinking and buy things that they may not want or
cannot afford.

Accordingly, critics have often perceived ethical violations in advertising. They argue that
advertisements are designed only to sell and to shift desire from one product to another through
emotional and psychological manipulations. These techniques make consumers more and more
materialistic and influence them to take impulsive purchase decisions without considering the
bargain properly. True information about the product is seldom provided and the added costs due
to advertising also are paid by the consumers. Other debatable ethical issues include deception,
misrepresentation and stereotyping. Advertisements having exaggerated claims, puffery,
unsubstantiated testimonials, not giving the full information and selectively creating a false belief
etc. when introduced into the perceptual process of the consumer results in negatively influencing
consumer buying behaviour. Advertising approaches of evoking emotions for products like
expensive cars or jewellery or perfume or using celebrities to promote such items are being
criticised as oppressive and manipulative advertising strategies where consumers might perceive
ethical dilemmas and feel that their rights and preferences are being affected. Researchers have
pointed out that advertisements can have disturbing impact on today’s society by promoting
materialism. Advertisement-based communication can tempt people by brain-washing them into
spending on needs that do not exist. Spending for materialistic desires which consumers actually
don’t need or can’t afford will initially make them live in a world of fantasy, but soon, excessive
buying and materialistic desires to own things can result in financial stress and post-purchase
dissonances.



When women and children are the target groups, advertisements at times may corrupt social and
ethical values. One of the most controversial topics in advertising is children becoming ‘soft
targets’ to commercials of food companies which make them develop unhealthy food
consumption habits and affect their right to learn what is really good for them . Children these
days are exposed to a media-saturated environment and commercials of food items can affect
their consumption habits as it may not be possible for them to understand and choose like adults
and they might eventually fall victims to misleading advertisements and commercials. Hence,
advertising to children is perceived as manipulating them and influencing their behaviour as they
are very vulnerable towards commercials. In fact, advertisements are directed at children in the
hope that they will put pressure on their parents to buy those products. This ‘pester power’ of
children might intrude upon parent-child relationship.

Portrayal of women in advertisements is criticised for failing to recognise the diverse role of
women in society. Men are generally shown knowledgeable and aggressive than women and this
is criticised as reinforcing archaic gender stereotypes affecting women’s right to ‘just portrayal’.
Such depiction of women in stereo typical roles is criticised at all levels. Added to this are the
comparison standards for attractiveness and setting appearance goals for women in
advertisements which often results in feelings of inadequacy and dissatisfaction with the self.

The way vulnerable consumers are targeted daily with endless advertisements creating desires in
them and making them take impulsive purchase decisions is making it a fascinating subject for
researchers. As far as the truthfulness of the claims made in advertisements is concerned, there
are question marks with regard to deception and misinformation that misleads consumers. So, the
question whether advertisement-based communications have manipulative, deceptive and
materialistic contents in them leading to ethical dilemmas and affecting the rights and preferences
of consumers is the focus of this research. The focus is also on whether advertisements targeting
children promote unhealthy consumption habits in them affecting their right to learn what is good
for them and whether portrayal of women in advertisements reinforces archaic gender stereotypes
and affect their right to appropriate portrayal.

 

1.2 Motivation and Need for the Study

Individuals have the right to be told the truth, right to what is agreed, right to choose freely and
the right to have their choices respected. This ‘rights concept’ has its roots in the philosophy of
the 18th-century thinker Immanuel Kant and others like him who focused on the individuals’
right to choose for themselves and said that human beings have dignity based on their ability to
choose freely and they have a fundamental right to have their choices respected. They argued that
people are not objects to be manipulated and manipulation of the rights of people in ways they do
not freely choose is a violation of human dignity. They urged to recognize human individuals as
ends and not to use them as means to others’ selfish ends.

Accordingly, advertisers also should tell the truth and anything less than the truth would be
unacceptable and this is one of the rationales for addressing the ethical issues like manipulation,
deception and materialism in advertisement-based communications.

Advertising is powerful tool of marketing and is actually meant for communicating to the
consumers about the product features, 'how and why it is used', 'by what kind of consumer',
'where and when', 'who makes it', 'what the company stands for' ... and so on. The focus is to give
such relevant information and create an informative image of the product or service. Instead, in
the name of information if there is informational malpractice, if there is propaganda in the name
of publicity promoting insecurity and greed, then it comes as a logical reason to conduct an
investigative research analysis of consumer perceptions on advertising communications to
addresses such several issues and make an attempt to bring out the realities to which the
consumers of today are exposed to.

Advertising has become a huge business today and marketers have a huge challenge of balancing
two contradicting strategies of profit motive and social responsibility. Promoting a socially
responsible business in the make-believe world of advertising and manipulative marketing is not
easy and there is a need to undertake research studies to analyse consumer perceptions on such
ethical concerns and how to save the consumers and the society from the ethical dilemmas of
advertisement-based communications.


Advertisements have an indirect but powerful impact on society. Critics argue that manipulative
and misleading advertisements create artificial needs and desires in consumers and persuade them
to buy things they may not need and cannot afford. ‘Puffery’, the practice of making exaggerated
claims and tempting consumers to buy items for non-existent needs is a very crucial area that
needs to be explored. Advertisers often use motivational research to identify hidden needs and
desires for security, power, dominance, adventure, achievement, appearance etc. in consumers
and use puffery to attract them. Consumers have become helpless as they are continuously
bombarded with endless advertisements and commercials and just cannot escape from them.
Advertisers are not concerned whether to advertise or not, but whom to advertise and how often.
In their eagerness to reach the target markets and build their brand image, they very often
overstep ethical norms expected by the society.

Therefore such manipulative, deceptive and exaggerated advertising claims and techniques
targeting consumers repeatedly need an in-depth research to throw light on consumer perceptions
of ethical dilemmas due to these manipulative influences, gender-based stereotypes and targeting
of vulnerable audiences like children that have seriously affected the advertising domain.

Thus, there is need to analyse whether advertisement-based communication is taking people for
granted and crossing the ethical lines leading to interpretational conflicts of consumers. Actually
advertising is only a tool. It is a very powerful tool of Integrated Marketing Communication. It is
meant to persuade the target audience to buy the advertised product. That is its job. But the
question that is raised is whether the advertising tactics and strategies override all ethical
concerns in an effort to achieve maximum sales.

Lack of ethical flavour and the on-going endless debate on whether advertising is targeting
vulnerable consumers with irrelevant messages and agonising ethical dilemmas is the motivation
behind attempting to explore and analyse the ethical concerns in advertisement-based
communications affecting the rights and preferences of consumers.



1.3 Research Problem, Purpose and Significance of the Study

This research focuses on the ethical issues and problems of advertisement-based communications
concerning manipulation and deception of consumers, misrepresentation of people and culture
leading to a materialistic society as well as advertisements targeting children and women. The
research enquiry or statement of the problem here can be stated as:
‘Do advertisement-based communications lead to ethical dilemmas affecting the rights and
preferences of consumers?’

The ethical issues and dilemmas analysed here are due to manipulative, deceptive and
materialistic contents in advertisements and due to advertisements targeted at children and those
portraying women. Accordingly, the aim or the purpose of the study is to analyse consumer
perceptions on such contents in advertisements that create desires for non-existent needs and
make people do impulsive purchases. Other objectives include analysing advertisements targeting
children and those reinforcing gender stereotypes while portraying women. These research
questions and objectives will be made into specific statements with details after the review of the
related literature.

Hence, this research contributes to the study of the ethical issues that have seriously affected the
advertising domain and throws light on consumer perceptions of ethical dilemmas due to
manipulative influences, gender-based stereotypes and targeting vulnerable audiences like
children. Gender stereotype results in violation of women’s fundamental right to be portrayed
appropriately and limits developing of their talents or pursuing professional careers or making
rational choices about their life plans. Archaic gender stereotypes in advertisements are the
assumptions advertisers make about women and this is criticised as failure to recognise the
changing role of women in society and depicting women as only concerned about cleaning the
house or cooking or looking after babies while men are being shown as more knowledgeable and
aggressive. Such stereotypes are archaic, outdated, obsolete and no longer valid. It is a mindset
problem. The ‘gender-injustice’ in this advertising attitude is questioned and criticised often and
there are examples of such advertisements being removed due to public criticism. However the
question on this mind set remains and this research attempts to analyse the consumer perceptions
on such mindset and ethical concerns.