Corporate responsibility in modern business practices

¶ … responsibility corporations should bear for the content of their advertisements continues. For some, advertisements are nothing more than informing consumers about the merits of a product. Advertising therefore makes good business sense for all products, including tobacco and hard liquor.

For others, however, the effects of advertising go deeper. In addition to selling a product, television advertising has the power to influence how people think and act.

It is because of these capabilities that the government continues to regulate cigarette and liquor advertising on television.

This essay argues that because while cigarette and liquor advertising served a purpose in the past, the ban is no longer needed today.

Proponents of the ban argue that advertising is a powerful medium. Most ads contain hidden codes, ones that are designed to manipulate behavior without the subject's knowledge. The old Newport "alive with pleasure" ads, for example, "depended on coded themes of sexual hostility and violence." Similarly, ads such as the Bacardi Black "Taste of the night" campaign encourage viewers to imbibe alcohol and to "liberate" their darker sides (Leo 446). The ads themselves already dramatize the ill effects of their products, under the guise of "liberation."

The thrust of this advertising is obvious. As a society, we should no longer consider traditional values such as patience and moderation. Instead, these commercials glamorize instant gratification and excessive behavior (Leo 446). Such television portrayals are dangerous, especially considering the immediacy and emotional impact of television.

Supporters also argue that the advertising ban is part of the government's "long tradition of regulating drugs to protect the public" (446). It is reasonable to assume, they argue, that increased tobacco and liquor advertising on television would lead to increased teen drinking and smoking.

Regulating advertising on television is thus a step towards reducing and preventing teen alcoholism and smoking, a measure that is definitely in the public interest.

Both these arguments have merit, but a closer look shows several flaws in the reasoning. Liquor distillers have argued, for example, that not all alcohol products are banned from television. Beer ads, after all, are a staple of television advertising. Additionally, a can of beer has just as much alcohol as a mixed cocktail drink (Leo 446). Considering these similarities, the ban on liquor ads on television does not hold much merit.

The move to regulate cigarette and liquor advertising is premised on its supposed detrimental effects. The death of fashion photographer Davide Sorrenti of a heroin overdose was seen as an indirect result of the "heroin chic" Calvin Klein fashion ads.

Such ads are seen as a way of "glamoriz (ing) addiction" in an effort to sell clothes. As a secondary effect, young people such as the twenty-year-old Sorrenti face a greater risk of addiction (Sullum 441-442). However, as Sullum has pointed out, young people are hardly rushing out to buy heroin. Neither are college dormitories the site of regular heroin overdoses.

Finally, Sullum voices another strong criticism against the advertising ban when he states that "blurring the distinction between persuasion and coercion is often the first step towards censorship" (Sullum 442).

Advertising, Sullum points out, is not coercion. Viewers are not forced into buying a product, whether it is a cigarette, a bottle of Scotch or a tube of toothpaste. Ads simply present products, often in funny situations and set to catchy jingles.

This essay agrees that television and advertising can have powerful effects on individual behavior. However, as Sullum points out, arguments regarding the causal relationship between ads and bad behavior "portrays people not as independent moral agents but as mindless automatons" (442).

Indeed, it is much easier to blame television and advertising for alcoholism and cigarette smoking.

This scapegoating deflects attention from the growing lack of personal responsibility.

This lack of responsibility and a trend towards victimhood can also be discerned in many other aspects of our culture. For example, the link between cigarette smoking and cancer has been widely-publicized since the late 1980s. However, many cancer sufferers who chose to continue smoking are now labeling themselves as "victims" and filing lawsuits against cigarette companies. Similarly, class action lawsuits are now being filed against companies like McDonald's by people who are now suffering from obesity and heart disease.