Unethical advertising practices and their harm to children

Ethical and Societal Issues of Marketing

The fundamental business model of advertising is changing drastically as the Internet becomes a much more prevalent communications channel, capable of being specifically targeted to audiences of consumers while also providing the ability to measure the performance of all forms of digital advertising online. This has significantly increased the ability to measure the effectiveness of advertising that includes mention of sex, violent acts, and the use of drugs including cigarettes and alcohol. Traditional advertising on the one hand does not offer these levels of advertising effectiveness measurement, so seeing if sex, violence and the positioning of drugs of all kinds including tobacco and alcohol is left to conjecture and speculation. In light of the fundamental shift in how advertisers are allocating their dollars to primarily digital forms of advertising, the increasing use of sexual references, nudity, allusions to violence and the use of violent acts to capture attention, and the implied peer acceptance and respect from using drugs of all types including tobacco and alcohol is becoming increasingly pervasive in both digital and offline advertising. Advertisers are concerned about how effective their advertisements are in both the online and offline areas of their strategies, and as a result are increasing the use of provocative, suggestive, and borderline content to rise above the messages of their competing advertisers. The result is that the boundaries of ethical marketing and advertising are continually getting crossed more and more often as advertisers look to gain an ever greater share of attention in their target markets. Instead of concentrating on how to better manage their offline and online advertising strategies, advertisers often resort to content and messaging that if left unchecked in the target audiences, can negatively influence the lives of children who may also see the advertising or actually be the target audience for the advertising itself. Joe Camel was specifically created to promote smoking to pre-adolescent and adolescent children (Gilpin, White, Messer, Pierce, 2007). There are many more examples of advertisers focusing on children and adolescents who have trouble distinguishing between who they are relative to who they think they should be, and often look to material items to define who they are (Pechmann, Levine, Loughlin, Leslie, 2005).

The intent of this essay is to illustrate how these unethical practices of advertisers, in seeking to create a higher level of awareness and trial of their products, are harming children and introducing them to products that can significantly impair their ability to mature cognitively, emotionally and ethically. For advertisers the challenge of continually staying relevant in an increasingly competitive and unforgiving commercial landscape that does not tolerate brands becoming "stale" or worse, "old." In seeking to continually and always stay relevant, advertisers are turning increasingly to sex, nudity, violence, and the positioning of all forms of drugs as what makes a person cool and acceptable. Compounding the challenge for advertisers is that with online advertising channels there is more accountability and nearly instantaneous feedback on which advertising works and which doesn't. Yet the implications and impact of children is unmistakable and must be taken into account in evaluating the ethics of advertisers looking to stay relevant and noticed in an increasingly turbulent and challenging selling environment both offline and online.

Sex Sells...Sometimes

Ask any teenage boy what the last three articles he read in the Playboy or Penthouse were and you will get a blank stare but ask him what the name, measurements, hair and eye color of the latest Playmate or model he saw and you will that data and more in a heartbeat. Research showing the influence of sex on advertising effectiveness supports this example with a high level of statistical significance; men typically associate nudity and sexually explicit images as both romantic and sexual in the same perception (Cummins, 2007). Women on the other hand disassociate nudity and sexual innuendoes in advertising with romantic feelings, which make the argument of sex always being a winner in advertising inconclusive (Cummins, 2007) and the studies completed linking this finding to excitation transfer theory as it relates to MTV videos and the purchase of music (Zillmann and Mundorf, 1987). What the researchers found that the excitation transfer theory accounted for higher sales to adolescent and post-adolescent males of musicians' songs that included coital and post-coital relations, yet actually resulted in a lower level of sales to girls in these same two age groups. Further, the girls mentioned that the sexual activity was offensive and often appeared to be in scenarios that featured women being the subservient role in the encounter. Rarely did the women in the videos initiate the sexual contact and activity, yet were seen as more as objects of gratification than being equal partners (Zillmann and Mundorf, 1987). Nonexistent in the use of sexual content both in online video clips on YouTube and throughout the MTV videos included in the analysis was one instance of a woman's pleasure being seen as more important than the man's dominance of the woman sexually (Cummins, 2007). This led the research (Zillmann and Mundorf, 1987) to conclude that highly erotic content that features nudity and coital and post-coital activity was more about males having a sense of conquering and less about bringing pleasure to the woman in the advertisements (Cummins, 2007). As a result, girls in these age groups who were shown these videos and asked to rate them and also define the probability they would purchase the music and the results showed that at an.01 level of confidence, they would not (Cummins, 2007).

The ethics of advertising to children using sexual behavior and sexual innuendo who are pre-teenagers in the 10-12, age group, the 13-19 age groups, and to 20-year-olds is like handing them the keys to a jet aircraft when they haven't learned how to even drive a car yet. It is well documented the pre-adolescent and adolescent children tend to have little tolerance for ambiguity and often find experimentation as a means to both prove to themselves their own worth and sense of competency (Pechmann, Levine, Loughlin, Leslie, 2005). Combining sexual behavior as a means for boys to gain a sense of competency and giving girls this age a chance to rebel through an act that is overwhelming portrayed as having no real consequences directly leads to pre-teen and teen pregnancies, in addition to sexually transmitted diseases (STD)s including AIDS. For many of the producers and directors of these videos they were discovering their sexual freedom during a period when the threat of AIDS and the rampant spread of STDs had not reached its present state. On top of these health reasons which are in and of themselves reason to create guidelines that monitor the ethicacy of sexual content aimed at pre-adolescents and adolescents, there is the fact that girls and young women in these videos are shown to be inferior and not taken into account as equal to men. In short, the use of sex in advertising music completely ignores the health risks and also fuels a complete lack of respect for the women in the scenarios portrayed. Worst of all, the use of sex in all forms of advertising targeted to pre-adolescents and adolescents sets the foundation for the most dangerous kinds of rebellious behavior they can imagine; creating another life and then having to take on more responsibility when they aren't responsible for their own yet. Clearly unethical to use in advertising seen by children, this appealing to the curiosity and rebelliousness of children needs to be legislated against and advertisers who do this sell a few more songs need to be fined.

Tobacco and Alcohol Advertising Effects Are Lasting

Advertisers who concentrate on tobacco and alcohol advertising both offline and online often create lifelong customers from the ranks of children and teenagers seeing their advertisements. The fact the Joe Camel was specifically developed to attract children to Camel cigarettes is a case in point (Gilpin, White, Messer, Pierce, 2007). These researchers have created a maturity model that shows how over time children exposed to cigarette advertising, even as children, take just ten packs of purchases to become regular users of tobacco, and there is a 46% chance they will become lifelong smokers as a result. The use of promotional materials including the use billboards near elementary, middle schools, and high schools has also shown to be effective in stimulating trial use of cigarettes in school children attending these schools. The predominance of messaging around tobacco products continually fuels a sequence of trail leading to adoption and then heavy use on the part of pre-adolescents and adolescents (Gilpin, White, Messer, Pierce, 2007).

The ethics of advertisers concentrating on children as early adopters has been assailed by the U.S. Congress and lawmakers which have outlawed these advertising practices and relied on federal agencies to ensure that children are protected from both offline and online advertising by tobacco companies concentrating their messages on the youngest group of consumers they possibly can introduce to their products. it's blatantly unethical to advertise these products to children who, as was seen in the studies relating to violence, do not have a fully developed set of inhibitory functions in their brains to discern if smoking is good for them or not. The Truth campaign has been highly successful in getting children to give up smoking if they have already tried it and not trying it in the first place if they haven't yet (Farrelly, Davis, Haviland, Messeri, Healton, 2005). Conversely however those children exposed both online and offline to cigarette advertising stand a high probability of becoming lifetime smokers if there is no countervailing strategy to bring them back from smoking an initial ten packs. The tragedy of this is that many children are now beginning to develop lung disease before their bodies are fully grown. The lack of ethics tobacco advertisers have in recruiting children as customers is reprehensible and needs to be a marketing practice that if continued, needs to earn these advertisers heavy fines for taking advantage of children by making their products appear to be toys when in fact there are major health consequences of using them.

In the area of alcohol and liquor, the same unethical advertising strategies also pervade this area. Liquor advertising now stresses alcoholic drinks that are portrayed as fruity and like punch, while the intoxicating and addictive aspects of alcohol are never presented to the children advertisers seek to sell to. The retort of advertisers is that they have labeled their products as for those above 21 or legal drinking limits serves to only challenge underage children targeted by their advertising to seek ways of gaining the drinks for consumption (Cray, 2001). There's an even more addictive aspect to selling children liquor, and that is the fact that being drunk is often seen as a bade of honor in certain social circles, especially in middle and high school (Pechmann, Levine, Loughlin, Leslie, 2005). Clearly supporting self-destructive behavior, advertising alcohol and all forms of liquor with veiled references to pre-adolescents and adolescents can also lead to accidents and over the long-term, addiction. In addition, children in pre-adolescent age groups seek resolution of the turmoil and floating anxiety they have of moving from elementary to middle school, and the big jump from middle school to high school. Online advertising of liquor and the carefree attitude these advertisements show is for many children seen as a panacea to all that trouble them. In the turmoil and uncertainty of facing down some of life's biggest challenges, they revert to alcohol for a sense of control over their lives (Pechmann, Levine, Loughlin, Leslie, 2005). As their brains have limited inhibitory development and the quick fix of alcohol becomes a sought-after escape (Cauffman, Steinberg, 2000).

Summary

Advertisers strive to deliver messages over the rising voice levels of competing and substitute products in addition to the growing importance of all forms of consumer-generated media including blogs, viral videos and Wikis. The fact that many advertisers realize these forms of online communication can deliver exceptionally strong results from viewership while appealing to children is blatantly unethical and is tantamount to sacrificing these children's lives for high advertising ratings. For the sake of their financial bonuses that are calculated not on products sold, yet on views of their online advertisements, these advertisers sacrifice children for financial gain. Thankfully there are more and more safeguards on the advertising of sexually oriented content, violent content and the selling of cigarettes and alcohol. Just as advertisers can specifically target audiences online and increasingly offline through research, there is the moral and ethical responsibility to protect, not exploit children for financial gain.