Advertising Ethics Teaching, Research and Challenges

7/30/2019 Advertising Ethics Teaching, Research and Challenges

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PRE-CONFERENCE SESSION:

ADVERTISING ETHICS: TEACHING, RESEARCH, AND

CHALLENGES

Esther Thorson, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

Margaret Duffy, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

This program was sponsored by the Institute for Advertising Ethics, a partnership of the American

Advertising Federation, and the Strategic Communication Faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism.

We would like to thank especially Mr. Wally Snyder, Director of the Institute for Advertising Ethics, and

Mr. David Bell of the Institutes Advisory Board for their intellectual and financial contributions to the pre-conference.

Overview

Persuasion in general and advertising in particular face important and diverse challenges,especially with the growing influence of digital formats, behavioral targeting, globalization, and a morassof legal and regulatory guidelines. This panel brought together experts in the academy and the profession to

discuss these challenges.

Summary

The conference covered a wide range of topics focusing on the concept that advertising ethics and

practices are crucially related to issues of trust. Further, it was suggested that organizations developing

and implementing ethical practices are more likely to be successful in the long term, a contention thatshould be further tested. Ultimately, organizations and brands are judged by their performance, not their

public pronouncements. All of the participants emphasized that in professional and academic realms,

ethics must be thought of as a conversation and a process, not a set of rules applied to any situation.Practitioners, marketers, and students need a toolbox of concepts and ideas to help them develop real-world

solutions in response to ethical dilemmas. In addition, future research should build on existing theoretical

approaches but also broaden our understanding of consumer perceptions of ethical and unethical activities.

CHALLENGES TO ADVERTISING ETHICS IN THE DIGITAL

REALM

Panel Chair: Wally Snyder, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

Lee Peeler, National Advertising Review Council, New York, NY

Robert Burnside, Chief Learning Officer, Ketchum, Inc., New York, NY

Sheryl Oliver, Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Panelists offered numerous examples of ethical issues related to news, and the blurring of news,

advertising, and entertainment products. They stressed the need for transparency on the part of agenciesand companies. Agencies such as Ketchum and others have developed training programs for employees.

Advertising and marketing associations are pursuing various channels of self-regulation. Panelists expect

ever-higher levels of scrutiny by regulators and suggest that there is considerable urgency for organizations

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to put meaningful standards in place. Regulatory agencies include the FTC and the FCC, each of which has

different priorities. Consumer interest groups are also playing a much larger role, especially with regard to

privacy intrusion.

NEW ADVERTISING ETHICS RESEARCH

AMERICAS SELF-REGULATORY PROGRAM FOR ONLINE

BEHAVIORAL ADVERTISING: SUCCESS OR FAILURE?

Jef Richards, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

In the fall of 2010 a group of organizations that develop and direct advertisings self-regulation

activities banded together to create a program that would help consumers recognize when information was

being collected about their behavior on the Internet. The organizations included the American Associationof Advertising Agencies (AAAA), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Direct Marketing

Association (DMA) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Council of Better BusinessBureaus (CBBB). Thus far this two-year old effort has produced mixed results.

INVASIVE OR HELPFUL?: CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS OF

BEHAVIORAL TARGETING

Heather Shoenberger, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

Mark Sableman, Thompson Colburn LLP, St Louis, MO

Esther Thorson, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

This study asked student respondents to evaluate scenarios in which there was a tradeoff betweengetting advertising for products they were interested in and having to provide some personal information

about themselves. The findings suggest that despite previous headlines, consumers do prefer targetedadvertising, even if their online behavior is tracked to provide that targeting. The ethical issues

surrounding privacy continue to be a central focus as advertisers, consumers, and regulators try to find the

right balance.

INTRUSIVENESS IN ADVERTISING

Steve Edwards, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX

This session provided an overview of all the ways in which advertising can be intrusivefrombillboards interrupting a beautiful view to commercials interrupting a favorite program. Edwards and his

colleagues have been involved in developing a scale to measure advertising intrusiveness. One of the best

ways to reduce the experience of intrusiveness is to target advertising more tightly to the interests ofconsumers, although as noted in the prior paper, the tighter the targeting the more likelihood of abusing

personal privacy.

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INSPIRATION FOR ADVERTISING ETHICS: AN INTERVIEW

WITH DAVID BELL

David Bell, former CEO, Interpublic Group, and Current Member, Advisory Council,

Institute for Advertising Ethics

This interactive discussion drew on Mr. Bells experience in his many roles in a major advertisingagency, his decision-making processes, and the examples of others. The discussion highlighted that the

practice of advertising ethics is an ill-structured problem in that there may be more than one right way to

deal with dilemmas. Mr. Bell also emphasized the importance of telling stories about ethical decision-

making in an emotionally compelling way.

TEACHING ADVERTISING ETHICS

INTEGRATING ADVERTISING INTO ALL ADVERTISING

CLASSES

Jan Slater, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL

To assure that ethics is an integral component of how college students think about advertising,

Slater suggests that the topic should be infused throughout the advertising curriculum. There are ethicalproblems with creative, media planning, account management, and in advertising research. When the study

of ethics is isolated into a single advertising ethics course students are less likely to internalize concepts and

be able to apply ethical decision-making processes.

TEACHING ADVERTISING ETHICS WITH THE FUTUREPRACTITIONER IN MIND

Gregory Pabst, San Francisco University, San Francisco, CA

David Koranda, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR

Media and advertising are strongly relationship-based businesses and students must understand

how all roles in advertising can be affected by this. Media buyers may be offered improper incentives,

for example. The creative process has many inherent potential ethical issues and the differing values of the

client as well as other actors inside and outside the agency must be considered. Schools must provide

students with realistic preparation for the potential conflicts in values and interests that inevitably arise.

ADVERTISING ETHICS IN BROADER CONTEXT

ADVERTISING ETHICS AND MARKETING ETHICS

Richard Beltramini, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI

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Beltramini reported on a study that was in press in the Journal of Business Ethics. Third in a

series, the newest study, a survey of more than 2000 college students, showed the highest level of concern

about ethics in the young people. Students worried that ethical concerns would damage their own financial

status, would damage the economy, and would put them under future pressure to breach ethical boundaries.It is crucial to examine the ethical concerns of young business students because they are predictive of the

level of honesty and integrity we will see in the next generation of advertising and marketing students.

UPDATE ON THE CURRENT STATE OF ADVERTISING ETHICS

THEORY

Minette Drumwright, University of Texas, Austin, TX

Patrick Murphy, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN

These authors have done extensive work interviewing advertising academics and business leaders

about their advertising ethics. It is clear from these interviews that ethics remains a central issue, but the

nature of the conflicts and problems is changing rapidly with the growth of digital forms of advertising and

the increasing ability to target advertising. A continuing problem is that the companies that are involved in

advertising have business and ownership linkages that more easily lead to conflicts of interest.

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Advertising Ethics Teaching, Research and Challenges

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