Principled and Ethical Advertising

Principled

and

Ethical Advertising

Advertising is considered the best and most    creative way to persuade the general public into thinking they want or need a certain product. This process is carried out through images that a consumer feels are real and which affects them emotionally.  This  type  of  influential control  in  the  hands  of  an  advertiser  must envisage moral and ethical responsibilities to portray their images with the right amount of accuracy. This issue is prevalent in not only the realm of advertisements reaching consumers but also to images reaching people as citizens of a democratic society.  Images are manipulated to stimulate a certain way of thinking in much of the political world as well.   Political propaganda has the same goal as advertising:  persuasive control.  Images  can  be  altered  to  promote  a  certain  viewpoint  or  to  gain  support  for  a  certain cause.

When people are   educated  and can develop the capacity  for  analyzing advertisements  and  images,  they  can  deliberately    not accept  an  image  as  the  decisive certainty and communal rule. The choice to be more decisive and the conscientiousness to stop the amount of control images have on the society’s values is in the hands of the consumers or citizens themselves.  This obviously means that   the  strong  power  that  images  have  had  on  an  individual  is  a  shared  responsibility between the moral decisions of the advertiser or creator of  the  image  as  well  as  the  necessary  critical  thought  process  of  the  individual.

Depending upon a person’s point of view or amount of knowledge, the term consumerism might take on several different expressions. One thing is sure and that is people generally enjoy consuming and doing it with the utmost convenience possible.  Naturally advertising in the business world is specifically dedicated to understanding exactly what products or services are of interest to customers.  However, a consumer eventually need to be  the  decision  makers  on  how  they  react  to  advertisements  or  political  propaganda and the actions they take as a reaction When an image is put  in  front  of  a  person,  it  does  not  take  deprive the individual of the    natural capability and   autonomy  humans  have  in  decision  making.

In the age of information, people have other means besides television and radio for acquiring knowhow.  In  a  society where  public  service  announcements  are  becoming  more  and  more  common and more frequently heard,  communities  are  taking measure for educating people about  important, prevalent topics. Organizations and activist groups who aim to educate consumers need to step in and create ads that will motivate awareness in the consumer in the same manner as “Partnership for a drug-free America” among other things. When  consumers are more aware of how to  be  a  “smart  audience”,  they  will  be  less  vulnerable  to  be influenced  by ambiguous ads.  This will help the advertisers learn to  be more  honest  in  the way  they  present  images.   If  consumers  are  learning  to  be  more  critical,  the  advertiser  will  inevitably  react  and  become more aware of being honest in the images they create.