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8/8/2019 Advert Eth 1
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Journal of Advertising,vol. 38, no. 1 (Spring 2009), pp. 83107.
2009 American Academy of Advertising. All rights reserved.
ISSN 0091-3367 / 2009 $9.50 + 0.00.
DOI 10.2753/JOA0091-3367380106
The advertising industry has been and continues to be an
industry in the midst of radical transformation. It has experi-
enced a host of organizational, geographical, and technological
changes. Privately owned agencies led by great creative talent
have given way to publicly owned holding companies with
multiple agency brands and a plethora of marketing services
that are led by businesspeople. Once primarily domestic in
focus, the industry has undergone globalization as agencies
have followed their clients to far-flung parts of the world.
The advent of new technology has enabled new media to ex-
plode. Traditional mass media advertising is augmented by
nontraditional approaches, such as product placement, viral
marketing, direct marketing, and virtual community market-
ing on the Web. Given these dynamic changes, practitionersmust confront the challenges of the new advertising world
daily, and scholars are addressing the implications of revolu-
tionary change. As such, many questions confront the field of
advertising. One question is not always as obvious as others,
but it is equally important. What is the state of advertising
ethics? To answer it, we wanted a perspective that elicited
the ideas of thought leaders, knowledgeable participants, and
observers of the advertising industry. As such, we conducted
in-depth interviews with leading practitioners and academ-
ics. We supplemented these data by reviewing advertising
agency Web sites, advertising textbooks, and the academic
literature. We begin with a review of the academic literature
and then describe the research methods before turning to our
findings.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ADVERTISING
ETHICS LITERATURE
Advertising ethics has been defined as what is right or good
in the conduct of the advertising function. It is concerned
with questions of what ought to be done, not just with what
legally must be done (Cunningham 1999, p. 500). Corpo-
rate social responsibility (CSR) is closely aligned with, and
at times overlaps, ethics. As such, our study deals with someaspects of corporate social responsibility. CSR encompasses
the obligations of the firm to society, or more specifically,
the firms stakeholdersthose affected by corporate policies
and practices (Smith 2003, p. 53). Berger, Cunningham, and
Drumwright (2007) reviewed definitions of CSR and identi-
fied three dimensions that demonstrate the interrelatedness of
CSR and ethics: (1) internal policies and processes that ensure
that a company conducts its operations in a responsible and
ethical manner, (2) external initiatives that contribute to and
improve the communities in which a company operates such
THE CURRENT STATE OF ADVERTISING ETHICS
Industry and Academic Perspectives
Minette E. Drumwright and Patrick E. Murphy
ABSTRACT: Given the dynamic change and radical transformation of the advertising industry, we interviewed industryand academic leaders to seek their perspectives on the current state of advertising ethics. We also analyzed advertising
agency Web sites, reviewed advertising textbooks, and surveyed the academic literature. We distinguish the ethics ofthe advertising message from the ethics of the advertising agency business. New and perplexing ethical issues related toadvertising messages have emerged with the advent and growth of new and nontraditional media. Because of the more
complex organizational structures of global communication agency networks, the temptations, risks, and rewards ofunethical behavior in the business of advertising are greater than ever. We recommend that both industry and academiabecome more proactive, individually and in consultation with one another, in dealing with ethical problems and in set-
ting norms.
Minette E. Drumwright (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill) is an associate professor of advertising, Department
of Advertising, College of Communication, University of Texas at
Austin.
Patrick E. Murphy (Ph.D., University of Houston) is C. R. Smith
Co-Director of the Institute for Ethical Business Worldwide and a
professor of marketing, Mendoza College of Business, University
of Notre Dame.
The authors thank former Journal of Advertising editor Russell N.
Laczniack for giving them the idea for this paper and for encour-
aging them to undertake the project. They are indebted to their
informants for sharing their insights with them. They also thank
Mercedes Duchicela for her excellent research assistance, and Mary
C. Gentile, Russell N. Laczniack, H. W. Perry, Jr., William S. Smith,
and Patricia A. Stout for their helpful comments on earlier versions
of the manuscript.
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as corporate philanthropy and employee volunteerism, and
(3) the impact of these initiatives on society.
Our purpose here is not to provide a comprehensive
literature review. We seek simply to characterize trends
through the decades. For in-depth reviews of the research on
advertising ethics, see The Handbook of Advertising (Tellis and
Ambler 2007) and its chapters on advertising ethics (Drum-
wright 2007); advertising to vulnerable segments (Bonifieldand Cole 2007); advertisings performance in a market system
(Wilkie and Moore 2007); and advertising, consumption, and
welfare (OGuinn 2007).
The subject of ethics in advertising has a long history, and
many of the same ethical concerns and criticisms of advertising
have persisted through many decades and into the twenty-
first century. More than 55 years ago, F. P. Bishop, formerly
a member of Parliament and editor ofThe Times of London,
published one of the first books on advertising ethics where
he chronicled several moral indictments of advertising:
It stimulates unworthy desires, misleads the consumer, and
encourages consumptionism. This 11-chapter book titledThe Ethics of Advertising (1949) examined many of the issues
that some believe still plague advertisers and agencies, and
his introduction addresses what many would consider a major
question currently facing advertising:
Advertising has come to occupy a key position in the greatargument of todaythe argument about the right balancebetween social control and individual liberty. Hitherto theeffect of its use has unquestionably been to promote individualliberty, at the expense, some would say, of good order andsocial discipline. (p. 13)
Another book by two journalists during that era dealt withethics in business (Childs and Cater 1954) and spoke directly
to advertising with the following:
The advertiser must accept some responsibility for the confu-sion of values that is a symptom of our times of troubles. Wordssuch as character, faith, belief, integrity, are used to commendthe quality of beer and pills. If you buy a certain car you areexalted, exultant, magnificently at ease. In some instances theadvertising mind is so dogmatic that any criticism brings asharp challenge as though it were heretical even to question.
About 45 years ago, Thomas Garrett, S.J. (1961), a philoso-
phy professor and priest, examined several ethical problems of
modern American advertising, including economic growth,persuasion, consumption, and potential monopoly power.
Garrett lauded Bishops work as an excellent book filled with
good sense and balanced judgment, but noted its limitation in
that Bishop is not an ethician and so avoids coming to grips
with what we may call the ultimates (p. 6). Garretts book
was both scholarly (a 25-page bibliography and footnotes on
virtually every page) and wide ranging, and it made the fol-
lowing timeless observation: Persuasive advertising, however,
poses a real problem sincesome of the persuasive techniques used
are intendedto by-pass the intellect and reduce rationality, and
may,ifsuccessful, lead to improvident actions (p. 173; emphasis
in original). Garrett concluded the book with a checklist of
questions for advertisers. These 13 questions are applicable
today and have been reprinted recently (Murphy et al. 2005).
His focus on both intent and technique represents critical is-
sues in the ongoing evaluation of marketing and advertising(Laczniak and Murphy 2006).
Around 35 years ago, Stephen Greyser (1972) outlined in
a Harvard Business Review article various attacks and coun-
terattacks on advertising, such as truthfulness, morality, and
exaggeration. Shortly thereafter, Wright and Mertes (1974)
edited an extensive anthology on advertisings role in society
and devoted one section of eight articles to ethical views toward
the subject. Among the featured authors were Wroe Alderson,
Theodore Levitt, and Garrett.
More than 20 years ago, a debate about the merits of adver-
tising took place in theJournal of Marketing. Richard Pollay
(1986) wrote an influential articlerecounting the positionsof humanities and social science scholars on advertisings
unintended social and cultural consequences. He concluded:
These ideas also deserve consideration because of their sober-
ing and substantial nature. Taken as a whole, they constitute
a major indictment of advertising (p. 31). Pollays critique
spawned a comment by Morris Holbrook (1987), who defended
advertising as pluralistic not monolithic, aimed at segments
and not the mass market, reflecting pop not high culture,
and mirroring not manipulating values. Pollays rejoinder
(1987) provided a point-by-point commentary on Holbrooks
arguments, but more significantly, it focused on values. He
argued that advertising communicates values and increasesthe saliency of certain values. He observed:
Of all the aspects of advertising that might be studied, valueshave the most profound implications and are the most mean-ingful to the larger academic community and the communityat large. (Pollay 1987, p. 107)
Much of the literature through the mid 1980s examined
ethics in advertising largely through commentary and philo-
sophical debate and from a macro perspective of advertisings
effects on society rather than at the micro level of the firm
and the practitioners working in it (Hunt and Chonko 1987).
Drumwright (1993) characterized this work as pertaining toone of two discourses: (1) a legal discourse among lawyers
and regulators that focuses largely on the rights of advertisers
and on what they can and cannot do vis--vis deception and
fraud; and (2) a moral discourse primarily among philosophers,
social critics, and ethicists that raises broad and far-reaching
questions related to advertisings societal effects.
From the 1980s through the present, two empirical streams
of research on advertising ethics have developed. The larger
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of the two streams has focused on understanding consumers
perceptions of potentially objectionable advertisingfor
example, ads with persuasive appeals, ads with idealized im-
agery, ads for dangerous products, and ads targeting children
(see, e.g., Gulas and McKeage 2000; LaTour and Henthorne
1994; Tinkham and Waver-Larisay 1994; Treise et al. 1994).
Hyman, Tansley, and Clark (1994) provided an overview of
this work in aJournal of Advertising special issue on advertisingethics (vol. 23, September). The smaller research stream has
focused on examining the views of advertising practitioners
largely through scenario analysis (e.g., Davis 1994; James,
Pratt, and Smith 1994; Moon and Franke 2000) and mail
surveys (e.g., Chen and Liu 1998; Hunt and Chonko 1987;
Rotzoll and Christians 1980). Much of this work has been
descriptive as opposed to normative, as has been the case for
research in marketing ethics more generally (Dunfee, Smith,
and Ross 1999).
Debate concerning the nature and effects of advertising that
characterized the early literature has continued in more recent
years. One perspective was offered by Kirkpatrick (1986), whoargued that the charges against advertising of manipulative
deception, persuasive coercion, and tasteless offensiveness re-
sulted from a hostility toward capitalism and egoism. He drew
on Ayn Rands theory of rational egoism as a system of ethical
principles that can provide the best understanding and guid-
ance in business decisions (Kirkpatrick 1992, 2007). Approxi-
mately 10 years ago, the Catholic Churchs Pontifical Council
for Social Communications published a short treatiseEthics
in Advertising (1997). This 35-page monograph challenged ad-
vertising to follow three major principles: truthfulness, human
dignity, and social responsibility. Several papers examining this
document were published in the Fall 1998 issue ofJournal ofPublic Policy and Marketing. While the impact of this work
may not have been a sustained one, it did make the point that
advertising is not just a concern in the secular world.
In the early years of this decade, advertising ethics expanded
to concerns about new media such as the Internet.Advertising
Age columnist Bob Garfield (2003), who billed himself as
advertisings leading critic, wrote an irreverent book in which
he coined such words as advertrocities and shockvertising.
While his message was much broader than ethics, he did offer
observations on campaigns and practices that he considered
unethical, such as Benettons long-standing social issues
campaign, political advertising, and sexism. Garfields majorindictment of advertising was dishonesty (p. 145).
Drumwright and Murphy (2004) turned attention toward
advertising professionals and agencies. They conducted in-
depth interviews with advertising practitioners within the
context of the ad agency. The findings indicated that many
agency personnel suffer from what they termed moral myo-
pia, a distortion of moral vision that prevents moral issues
from coming clearly into focus, or moral muteness, mean-
ing that they rarely talk about ethical issues. Encouragingly,
a small minority of advertising practitioners was morally
sensitive and exhibited moral imaginationthe ability to
envision moral alternatives that others do not. An earlier work
(Krueger 1998) contrasted the cultures of two advertising
agencies using in-depth interviews and found one agencys
philosophy of advertising to be strongly shaped by its CEOs
personal moral (including religious) convictions.A recent book-length publication on advertising ethics
was written by two Australian academics (Spence and Van
Heereken 2005). They examined several of the continuing con-
cerns of advertising such as truth in advertising, stereotyping,
and targeted advertising. They concluded with a cautionary
note that the pervasiveness and unrestricted proliferation of
advertising that threatens to engulf all aspects of our private
and public domains remains the biggest ethical problem in
advertising (p. 122).
Despite attention to issues of advertising ethics through the
decades, it would be a mistake to assume that advertising eth-
ics has received coverage commensurate with its importance.While advertising ethics has been recognized for some time as
a mainstream topic (Hyman, Tansley, and Clark 1994), research
is thin and inconclusive in many important areas.
METHOD
Multiple methods were employed to examine the status of ad-
vertising ethics in industry and academia, including interviews
with practitioners; interviews with chairs and relevant faculty
of leading advertising departments; analysis of ethics content
in the largest agencies Web sites; and examination of advertis-
ing textbook coverage of ethical, legal, and social issues.We believed that in-depth interviews of thought leaders
would offer unique insights into the status of advertising today.
Eighteen industry and academic leaders were interviewed using
a semistructured interviewing approach with broad questions
that enabled the informants to determine what focus was
important. All informants were promised anonymity and con-
fidentiality for themselves and their organizations to mitigate
biases related to social desirability and posturing.
Nine leading advertising practitioners were interviewed by
telephone or in person to ascertain how they view the state of
the field of advertising ethics. Seven of the nine were senior
executives in advertising agencies that are ranked among the20 largest agencies in annual worldwide billings (Advertis-
ing Age 2006), and two were from leading U.S. industry
organizations who had previously worked in advertising or
marketing communication. The senior executives in agencies
held positions of chairman and/or CEO of a global agency
or president or COO of a major division of a global agency
(e.g., the U.S. division). We probed regarding three general
topic areas: (1) the advertising ethics issues that they see as
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important now and in the future, (2) how one can create an
agency that supports ethical decision making, and (3) research
that academics could conduct that would advance the field of
advertising ethics. The interviews lasted between 30 minutes
and an hour and were audio recorded. In addition to the inter-
views, some informants provided ethics-related materials such
as transcripts of speeches or employee communications created
by their agencies. These data sources enriched the database andenabled us to check for convergence. Before the interviews were
conducted, the interview protocol, which is in Appendix 1,
was reviewed and critiqued by two professors specializing in
ethics and a professor with expertise in qualitative research. It
was pretested on two senior advertising executives.
Nine academic leaders from highly respected university
advertising programs that are typically ranked in the top 10
were interviewed by telephone or in person to examine three
issues: (1) the manner in which ethics content is integrated into
the university curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate
levels, (2) issues related to advertising ethics that they see as
important now and in the future, and (3) research that academ-ics could conduct to further the field of advertising ethics. Six
of the nine academic leaders were chairs or directors of leading
university programs in advertising, and three were academics
who teach and research issues of advertising ethics whom the
chairs directed us to interview. All informants were promised
anonymity and confidentiality for themselves and their uni-
versities to mitigate social desirability biases and posturing.
All interviews were audio recorded. Before the interviews were
conducted, the interview protocol, which is in Appendix 2,
was reviewed and critiqued by two professors, one who had
served as an academic administrator and one who specializes
in qualitative research.Because agency Web sites present the public faces of the
agencies and are frequently accessed for information about
the agencies, we also examined the Web sites of the largest
25 U.S. agencies as ranked by agency revenue (Advertising Age
2006) and analyzed their ethics-related content. We reviewed
each Web site thoroughly, followed every link, and read each
part. Web site information was coded using the template in
Appendix 3.
Textbooks on the fundamentals of advertising are de-
signed to introduce students in Colleges of Communication as
well as Colleges of Business to the field of advertising. These
textbooks are used both in required courses for advertising ma-jors and in elective courses for students who are not advertising
majors. As such, the manner in which the textbooks present
ethics in advertising is a reflection of the state of the field of
advertising ethics and an indication of the way in which new
entrants into the industry are being prepared. Seven of the
best-selling textbooks were selected from sales data provided
by publishers, and ethics-related content was examined and
categorized.
FINDINGS
Our reports on the findings from our interviews with industry
leaders are followed by the results of our analysis of agency
Web sites. We then report the findings from our interviews
with academic leaders, followed by our analysis of textbooks.
Because the managerial insights on ethical decision making
and directions for future research are based on the interviews,they are reported as findings.
Perspectives of Industry Leaders
We were curious to see whether our industry leader informants
believed that the ethical issues in advertising have changed
in recent years. The answer was yesand no. Our informants
drew a distinction between traditional and new ethical issues.
That is, despite changes, many of the traditional ethical is-
sues are essentially the same. New and significantly different
ethical issues are emerging as a result of the electronic envi-
ronment, however. In our interviews, we quickly saw anotherdistinction. There are ethical issues related to the advertising
message, and there are issues related to the advertising busi-
ness. Message ethics has to do with creating and delivering
the commercial message, while business ethics deals with the
processes involved in running the advertising agency. Are new
issues related to messaging ethics different from traditional
issues? Our informants persuaded us that yes, new messaging
ethics issues are different in kind from traditional issues. Are
new issues of business ethics different from traditional issues?
No, our data indicated that new issues are not different in
kind, but they often are different in degree when compared to
traditional issues of business ethics; the risks, the rewards, andthe temptations are often greater. In addition to message ethics
and business ethics, our informants often brought up issues
that we categorized as CSR that encompassed contributions
to the larger community such as pro bono work promoting
social causes.
Message Ethics
The traditional challenge of advertising is to create a commer-
cial message that is both effective in selling and truthful. Our
industry leaders did not find this to be a difficult or perplex-
ing issue with respect to traditional mass media. In contrast,however, issues that are both difficult and perplexing arise in
the environment created by new and nontraditional media.
Traditional Media. The age-old question of truth in advertis-
ing as it relates to traditional media is perceived to be simple
and straightforward by industry leaders. Academics that we
interviewed suggested otherwise, and there is debate in the
scholarly literature, but industry leaders did not perceive truth
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in advertising in traditional media to raise difficult issues. As
one said:
The message must be true to what the product or serviceis. . . . I shouldnt say it is simple, but it is very simple tome. . . . If youre talking about existing communication models[mass media advertising] . . . I think that people are groundedand do the right thing.
Another went so far as to view it as a nonissuea moot
point:
Is advertising truthful? Its very much an overblown and un-realistic criticism. . . . Advertising does not fabricate storiesabout products or brands because that is self-defeating. . . . Ithas become almost a moot point. Advertising, as far as productclaims are concerned, is truthful, and I dont think that is anongoing ethical issue.
A third explained, The philosophy with which we approach
our work is rooted in the truth. Yet another said, Our job is
to help our clients find the inherent drama in a product andto tell that in an ethical way. One informant pointed to the
checks and balances of traditional media:
The risk of advertisers not telling the truth in advertising[in traditional media] is quite low. There are checks andbalances.
These checks and balances encompass laws, regulatory over-
sight, self-regulation, media guidelines, and various other
policing mechanisms.
Academics, however, were not as sanguine as practitioners
concerning issues related to truth in advertising in traditional
media. One academic voiced his concerns:
I dont think that we are clear-cut about what deceptive ad-vertising is and what we can allow and what we cannot allow.I see a lot of advertising, and I am just appalled that it is evenallowed. I say to myself, We make a big deal about decep-tion in some areas, and in other areas, we just wink and turnour heads and dont clamp down. Sometimes its politicallydriven; it depends upon certain industries that are lobby-ing. . . . Im just appalled at some of the infomercials . . . orsome of the get-rich-quick schemes . . . Medical claimsweneed to clean up our act.
Scholarship also raises debates concerning ethical issues related
to traditional media (e.g., Pollay 1986; Spence and Van Heer-
eken 2005). Nonetheless, industry leaders were almost universal
in their belief that these issues pose few problems today.
New and Nontraditional Media. Once the topic shifted from
traditional media to new and nontraditional media, the tenor
of the conversation with practitioners and academics alike
changed dramatically.
The challenge is where we are going in the future as commu-nication media evolve. I say that is where the open questionis. . . . Every single day, everything we do is continually evolv-ing. . . . The world we are living in is increasingly gray.
The ethical issues presented in new media and nontradi-
tional media are different in kind. Industry leaders perceived
a host of ethical issues arising out of the Internet and the
blogosphere we live in. The concerns have largely to do
with the absence of checks and balances, the advertisers loss
of control, transparency, and privacy. Moreover, no consensus
has emerged regarding what is ethical behavior, and there is
no sense that industry participants are collaborating to build
consensus on these topics.
Technologically driven new media were characterized
as The Wild Westa rough and tough, no-holds-barred
context in which the regulations, guidelines, and controls of
traditional media are absent. One industry leader voiced the
concerns of many:
[W]hen clients say, I want to reach a certain audience, wecan go around the system, meaning we can go on the Inter-net or on other things that are uncontrollable. . . . You canadvertise anything. . . . How do we do the right thing in amedia environment that is agnostic to being right?
Another elaborated:
Nobody regulates the Internet. Its like Howard Stern livingdown to his image. People can make more money by pander-ing to the lowest common denominator because the Internetprovides a way to advertise around traditional media.
An additional frequently cited problem was the advertisers
loss of control over the message itself. In traditional media,
advertisers create commercial content, but in new media,
consumers also generate content, which creates new and dif-
ferent ethical issues:
New media, new ways to reach people, everyone has accessto everything. . . . Anybody can say anything about anybodyor anything at any time.
Another lamented the lack of ethics demonstrated by some
consumers and noted the increased importance of a defensive
role for advertisers and their agencies.
There is so much going back and forth between consumerson the Internet that shouldnt be from any standpoint ofmorality, legality, or ethics. Advertising has to be doublycareful about what it associates its clients products andbrands with.
Despite the problem it creates, the active participation of
consumers and their ability to create messages can have up-
sides. It can provide a potential check on unethical behavior
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by advertisers. Though an atypical response, one industry
leader noted:
There is such a forum for reaction [on the Internet]. . . . Itsharder and harder to become unethical if you were intendingto do that. Things get uncovered so rapidly with blogs andpostings and everything else. . . . The public sits in judgmentmore readily than ever before.
Nonetheless, the situation is complex. An academic predicted
that firms will eventually be held responsible for what consum-
ers say about brands on the Internet:
A company could hide behind individual consumers on blogs.I dont think this is going to go on forever. I think that some-body is going to say, Youre providing the consumer witha way to make a public commercial message. Therefore, youare responsible for it. . . . but consumers could hide behindfree speech.
This is an interesting observation. Although this is not the
place for an extended discussion of the First AmendmentandFirst Amendment doctrine is in fluxthe ability to regulate
corporate speech differs from the ability to regulate the speech
of individuals. In short, our informants saw major changes
regarding accountability, checks and balances, and regulation
when it came to new media.
Issues of personal data and the related privacy issues also
quickly came to the fore in discussions of new media. As one
industry leader explained:
You go to a store. You walk in; you walk out. Very little isknown about you. You go to a Web site. Much more is knownabout you.
Knowledge about consumers is power, and that power
can easily be abused, especially in a world of one-to-one
communication:
One of the biggest issues as we move to more one-to-one com-munication is data and how can you use it. . . . How manytimes have you seen a major marketer let a bunch of data outabout people? Clearly, where I get the most troubled aboutethics is when people know things about me that I dont wantthem to know that I consider my innermost private informa-tion. That data is known by the marketer, by the advertisingagencymaybe blind, maybe not. Its known by a lot of
people, and as that circle of people increases, there are moreand more opportunities for that to break down.
Again and again, our informants raised questions regarding
appropriate use, but solutions were not offered:
In the emerging digital marketing frontthe world we livein nowhow much information is permissible? How muchare you willing to share? . . . What are the norms of appropri-ate practice?
Issues related to transparency were raised regarding new
media (e.g., the Internet) and nontraditional media alike. Non-
traditional media encompasses the likes of paid viral marketing
and product placement, and the use of it is mushrooming. One
industry leader characterized the underlying ethical issue as,
How transparent does a company need to be in general? For
example, when people are hired to give seemingly spontaneous
product testimonials and recommendations as in buzz or viralmarketing, do the message recipients have a right to know that
the messages are paid, commercial messages? Does product
placement in movies and television shows use entertainment
to mask commercial messages? A specific example of transpar-
ency issues is a blog praising Wal-Mart called Wal-Marting
Across America that appeared to be a grassroots effort created
by a man and woman traveling across America in an RV and
staying in Wal-Mart parking lots (Gunther 2006). The blog
was actually created by three employees of Edelman Public
Relations, for whom Wal-Mart was a paying client.
This practice of planting information on blogs has been
dubbed flogging. An academic informant reported that hehad been contacted by a company wanting student interns to
masquerade as consumer bloggers. The company representa-
tive claimed that he had already signed up one university to
participate in the internship. Do consumers have a right to
know when they are being subjected to a commercial message
in a blog or another supposedly objective source? Do they have
a right to know who is creating the message? An executive
made an insightful observation on the changing role of the
messenger:
It used to make sense not to kill the messenger. Now Im notso sure. It used to be that the medium was the message. Nowthe messenger is the message.
Some industry leaders saw problems with paid viral marketing
and flogging. As one noted:
I dont think people like to be conned. I dont think peoplelike people who trick them . . . pretending to be tourists,hanging out in the bar, pretending to be regular consumerswhen they are being paid by the advertiser. How do peoplefeel about that?
However, practitioners observed a lack of consensus within
the industry regarding issues of new and nontraditional
media:
I dont think that the norms have been established becauseeverything is evolving so quickly.
The lack of consensus is reflected by the fact that major market-
ers such as Ford with the introduction of the Focus (Murphy
et al. 2005) and P&G with its Tremor word-of-mouth market-
ing use forms of paid viral marketing (Wells, Moriarty, and
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Burnett 2006). One industry leader called for collaboration
within the industry to come to consensus regarding what is
and is not ethical, but he observed that such dialogue is not
occurring:
When it comes to ethics, there needs to be a lot more col-laboration within the industry. . . . We need as an industry to
come together and talk about this stuff more and come to someconsensus. And that is not happening. The debate about whatsright or wrongwhats ethical or notis not being discussedvery much in this industry. And I dont know why. . . . Theindustry is not a collaborative industry.
Another practitioner informant expressed concern regarding
who might create new industry standards in the future and
what those norms might be:
Were [i.e., the United States] behind much of the world inwireless and the use of the Internet. . . . China has more cellphones than the U.S. . . . In the past, everyone learned [ad-vertising] ethics from the U.S. In the future, the world may
be learning [advertising] ethics from China, where they haveno restrictions on private data.
Business Ethics
Our informants described new issues in business ethics in
ways that suggested that they simply differ in degree rather
than in kind. That said, issues are seen as more complex with
higher stakes. The temptations are greater, and the risks and
the rewards are higher.
The issues are still the same. Dont lie. Dont cheat. Dont steal.Its just that now there are more opportunities to lie, cheat,and steal, and they are bigger and more lucrative. . . . Its moresophisticated now. . . . The stakes are higher, the risks are big-ger, the rewards are bigger. But more people are watching.
Industry leaders tied the difference in degree to structural
changes in the industry. Bigger organizations are global in
scope and now offer much more than the traditional advertis-
ing services.
The business is more complex. [Advertising agency] organi-zations are bigger, international, and with multiple productlines. . . . There are more ways to do paper tricks, to fool thetax man, the home office, the client. These are largely due to
structural changes in the way the business is run.
Certainly, a major structural change with the potential to
affect business ethics is the advent of publicly traded holding
companies as owners of multiple advertising agency networks
and specialized marketing services companies. Organiza-
tions such as Omnicom, WPP, and Interpublic have been
dubbed global network communications agencies (Tharp
and Jeong 2001). They certainly increase the complexity of
traditional business ethics issues. For example, conflicts of
interest resulting from clients who are competitors have long
been recognized as a potential ethical quagmire, but because
of the complex organizational structures of holding compa-
nies, who is a client of whom is more complicated now. Take,
for example, a recent predicament of the holding company
Omnicom. One sibling, Tribal DDB in Dallas, was working
with another sibling, GSD&M, to pitch Wal-Marts $560million account, while Tribal DDB in Chicago was working
with another agency sibling, DDB, on JCPenneys $430 mil-
lion account (Williamson 2006). Tribal did not disclose the
relationship with JCPenney to Wal-Mart and was dropped
from the pitch (Williamson 2006).
When asked about the effect of holding companies on
business ethics, there was no consensus, and the responses
ran the gamut. Some practitioners asserted that the pressures
on holding companies to meet quarterly financial goals had a
negative effect. As one said, Public companies want the big-
gest return from the smallest investment, which heightens the
temptation related to the traditional ethical issues. Anothercommented, Unethical things can happen when wonderful,
upstanding people become fixated on bottom line results.
Others felt that the holding companies had no effect because
holding companies leave the agencies free to pursue their own
strategies, unlike parent companies that tell their subsidiaries
what to do and how to do it. Still others asserted that hold-
ing companies had a positive effect on ethics through their
processes and demands for accountability. Some practitioners
acknowledged that it is very difficult to assess the net effect of
holding companies on ethics because of countervailing pres-
sures. They both increase financial pressure and also demand
increased transparency and accountability:
Its difficult to assess the effects of holding companies. Thereare colliding factors. Holding companies demand that agen-cies deliver results in no uncertain terms. They bought theagencies for one reasonto make a profit. On the other hand,they have implemented processes, rigor, discipline, and rou-tinized approaches that create a higher level of transparencyand accountability. Plus, the holding companies take Sarbanes[Oxley] very seriously.
While there was not consensus regarding the effects of
holding companies, there was consensus that changes in the
nature of the advertising business had made it a more difficult
business in which to succeed:
The fact that advertising is a harder business with morefinancial pressure now than ever before has heightened thetemptation [related to issues of business ethics].
Given growing business pressures, along with the structural
changes, industry leaders understood that business ethics
problems could develop. Referring to the much-publicized
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conviction of Ogilvy & Mathers Shona Siefert for business
ethics issues related to the Office of National Drug Control
Policy account (Edwards 2005), one informant commented:
If you ask anybody in the industry about the Shona Siefertthing, the first thing that youll hear is I cant believe thathappened to her. Thats a tragedy, but I can understand howthat happened.
Corporate Social Responsibility
When we asked about positive developments related to eth-
ics in the advertising industry, industry leaders were quick
to talk about what might better be labeled corporate social
responsibility (CSR). For the purposes of our study, we made
a distinction between the manner in which an advertising
agency creates messages and runs its business (ethics) and
an advertising agencys pro bono work and other efforts to
make positive contributions to its community and to society
at large (corporate social responsibility). Although CSR is
related to and often overlaps with ethics, in some ways it issubstantively different. In fact, one can imagine corporate
social responsibility being used to mask poor ethical behavior
or to assuage consciences. Industry leaders raised two issues of
corporate social responsibilitypro bono work and workforce
diversity. Nonetheless, our informants saw their pro bono work
as evidence of ethical behavior.
Industry leaders spoke enthusiastically of the power and
impact of the pro bono activities that their agencies undertake
to promote social causes. As one said:
We tithe our time and talents by allowing people to use theirtime and talents to make a difference using the power of media.Are we using advertising to make money, or are we using itto make a difference, and can both of those happen? I thinkthat they can. Making a difference is keymake a differencefor your people, make a difference for your clients, and makea difference for society.
Another stated:
When we do pro bono work for causeswere donating,among other things, the priceless value of an idea. Weredonating talent. Thats quite powerful. . . . The talent thatwe have persuades for the common good. Its something veryfew industries do.
Whether for the local homeless shelter or an international
nonprofit, advertising agencies provide generous donations
of their talents and energies.
The lack of diversity of the advertising industry workforce
was raised by industry leaders and academics alike. One in-
dustry leader asserted:
One of the most compelling ethical issues is diversity, andwere not making enough progress there. If anything, were
regressing. . . . Our industry is not accurately representing themakeup of the U.S. population. Were not creating enoughopportunities for minorities.
An academic identified and elaborated on a pipeline prob-
lem, which affects the advertising industry and advertising
education alike:
Weve got to get enough people in the pipeline who areinterested in advertising. Traditionally, minorities have notgravitated toward advertising as a field. . . . When you look atthe agencies, their record is abysmal. You might fault them fornot including diverse talent, but on the other hand, when youlook at people coming out of school with degrees, the pickingsare fairly slim. . . . We have to go down to the high schoolsand start generating interest and identifying advertising as apotential field of study for minority groups.
The problem of attracting minorities to advertising programs
was likened to the problem of attracting minorities to busi-
ness schools:
One of the reasons that we didnt have a lot of minorities inbusiness schools is because business was not seen as a careeroption. A lot of minorities coming to college are not comingfrom families that own businesses or that have investmentsin stocks and bonds, so its just a foreign field. Minoritiesare consumers of advertising, but advertising has not beenpresented to them as a career option, at least not one that hasbeen stressed. . . . Weve got to go to the high schools to exposeminority students to career opportunities in advertising, andweve started to do this, but we need to do more.
One can see the vicious cycle. Because relatively few minori-
ties work in advertising, young minorities do not know people
in advertising. Thus, they are not exposed to the career of ad-vertising, and as a result, they do not consider advertising as a
career option or study it in college. Consequently, few minorities
seek jobs in advertising. This issue escalated to the point that
the New York City Commission on Human Rights reached an
agreement with leading advertising agencies to set quotas for
African American hires (Anderson 2006; Gatling 2006).
As can be seen, our interviews covered a wide range of topics.
Understanding how industry leaders view ethics, we believe,
is of surpassing importance. To be sure, they are not impartial,
but they have unique and powerful insights. Because of who
they are, understanding their understanding is important.
Their perspectives will shape future actions of the industry. Asscholars, however, we recognized that there are other indicators
of the state of ethics in the profession. We turn to them now,
starting with Web sites.
Analysis of Advertising Agency Web Sites
Web sites are increasingly the public faces of agencies, reflect-
ing their personalities and what they value. As such, it seemed
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appropriate to analyze them for ethics-related content as an
indication of both the prominence given to ethics and how it
is conceptualized and presented. We are not suggesting that
the prominence of ethics on the Web sites equals the ethical
sensitivity of the agency; it might be a public relations effort
to overcome past ethical lapses. Corporations with elaborate
codes of ethics may not be the most ethical. Nevertheless,
in the current and relatively new world of the Internet andwith the growing importance of Web sites, it is interesting
and instructive to see how issues related to ethical behavior
are portrayed. Because the Web is constantly changing, and
because all of the agency Web sites are likely to change dur-
ing the time lag between our research and the publication of
this paper, we do not identify the specific agency Web sites.
Moreover, our goal is not to focus on specific agencies, but
to characterize agency Web sites in general.
A content analysis of the Web sites of 25 of the largest U.S.
advertising agencies ( Advertising Age 2006) revealed much
similarity in beliefs, aspirations, and goals. All agencies be-
lieve in the power of great ideas, aspire to create great brands,and thereby, be the best at what they do. The dominant values
revolved around creativity, imagination, curiosity, and pas-
sion. Often graphics and high-tech entertainment seemed to
be of preeminent importance.
Most agency Web sites did not present significant ethics-
related contentneither messaging ethics nor business eth-
icsin a prominent, comprehensive, easily accessible way. As
we elaborate below, almost two-thirds of the leading advertis-
ing agencies had little or no treatment of ethics on their Web
sites. Only one Web site had comprehensive ethical content
that was presented in a coherent and easily accessible manner.
A second Web site had substantial ethics emphasis, but itwas not presented in a coherent or easily accessible manner.
Five Web sites had brief but fairly prominent ethics-related
statements regarding the truthfulness of their work. Two
other Web sites had brief but fairly prominent and accessible
ethics-related statements about how they interact with or
hire people. Six Web sites had minimal ethical content, and
10 Web sites had no ethical content. Regarding CSR, eight
Web sites featured the agencys pro bono work, but only one
Web site had substantial corporate social responsibility con-
tent unrelated to pro bono work. The agency with the most
substantial CSR content was not the same agency with the
most comprehensive ethics content.The Web site with comprehensive ethics-related content
had statements regarding the centrality of truthfulness to the
work the agencys workers create, their fiduciary responsibil-
ity to their clients, messaging ethics, business ethics, and
workforce diversity. A link labeled Corporate Compliance
was prominently featured at the top of the home page, so the
information was easy to find. The agencys Code of Business
Conduct was presented with links to specific topics such as
gathering information about our clients competitors, cli-
ent invoicing, and entertainment, gifts and gratuities. A
brief section on Truth in Advertising was included, but it
did not deal specifically with issues of new or nontraditional
media that troubled our industry leaders. There was also a
letter from the CEO stressing the importance of ethical and
lawful behavior and tying compliance with the code to excel-
lence in client service. Mention was made of a complianceofficer, and both a hot line telephone number and an e-mail
address were provided if one had an ethical concern.
A second Web site had substantial ethics-related content,
but it was not presented in a coherent or easily accessible
manner. Most of the statements were buried in a subsection
of History about the agencys founder. They were disbursed
amidst other information from 6 to 18 clicks away from the
home page. An interested visitor had to hunt for the ethics-
related statements, all of which were brief, and piece them
together. Nonetheless, the Web site had statements about
creating truthful work, fulfilling fiduciary responsibility,
treating employees compassionately, considering characterin promotions, and not offending the mores of the countries
in which the agency does business.
Five agencies had Web sites that presented ethics as central
to the agencys work output by making a general reference to
the truthfulness of their work. The statements were featured
in sections that were likely to be visited frequently, such as
Our Mission or About Us. The comments were brief and
without elaboration, however. Some were direct and strong,
while others were broad and vague, such as doing whats
right or knowing the truths of the marketplace. Three of
the five also had a passing reference to how people are treated
(e.g., with respect or dignity). Two of the five Web sites in-cluded integrity amidst a list of values or characteristics.
One had a statement of commitment to supplier diversity.
Two Web sites had ethics-related statements regard-
ing how they interact with or hire people. One focused on
respectingand treatingcustomers for who they are:
human beings. However, the elaboration provided sounded
primarily like a marketing approach: weve taken the best
aspects of human relationships and applied them to improved
marketing. The other Web site featured the agencys com-
mitment to employee and supplier diversity and claimed to
employ people with integrity.
Six Web sites had minimal ethical content, consisting ofa single line buried amidst other information. Typical were
claims to be respectful partners, individuals who play fair,
or equal opportunity employers. Ten Web sites had nothing
that could remotely be considered ethical content.
Regarding corporate social responsibility, nine Web
sites had substantial content. Eight of them highlighted
the agencys pro bono work for nonprofit causes. Only one
Web site had substantial content unrelated to pro bono
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work. It described the agencys participation in three pro-
grams designed to expose minority public school students
to advertising as a career, as well as an annual day in which
agency employees volunteer for nonprofit organizations. It
is interesting to note that none of the Web sites dealt with
issues related to preserving the natural environment, which
is a frequent topic in the corporate social responsibility sec-
tions of corporate Web sites.Again, we do not mean to suggest that the design of Web
sites is directly correlated to ethical behavior. As with cor-
porate codes of ethics, however, attention or the lack thereof
given to ethics by a firm as it seeks to convey its mission and
principles may be reinforcing.
Perspectives of Academic Leaders
As explained in the Methods section, we interviewed depart-
ment chairs and directors of leading advertising programs in
universities to understand how ethics is incorporated in the
curricula of their programs and their perspectives on teachingadvertising ethics. Our questions focused on undergraduate,
masters, and Ph.D. programs. Academic leaders reported that
ethics has been on the agenda more prominently in recent
years and recognized the importance of exposing undergradu-
ates to issues of ethics in advertising. On the other hand,
some academic leaders expressed an ambivalence regarding
incorporating ethics into the curriculum. The ambivalence
stemmed from concerns that discussions of ethics would have
negative effects on students, such as creating doubts about the
profession and reducing their ability to succeed. All programs
had a required undergraduate course with a substantial ethics
component, but none had an equivalent required course as apart of their graduate programs at either the masters or Ph.D.
level. Efforts to integrate ethics into other aspects of the un-
dergraduate or graduate curricula could not be characterized
as organized or systematic.
Some attributed increased attention to ethics to the
Enron plus effect in which the plus encompassed the
well-publicized scandals involving advertising agencies such
as the Gray/Color Wheel scandal (Edwards 2004) and Ogilvy
and Mathers Office of National Drug Control Policy scandal
(Edwards 2005). As one said, The [ethics] advocates have
had a context in which to make their case that they didnt
have before.All of the academic leaders acknowledged the importance
of exposing undergraduate students to ethical issues in ad-
vertising. As one said:
The fact that we wake up in the morning and look ourselvesin the mirror and say that we teach advertising calls an ethicalissue into question itself. . . . I think that we as professionalsand as educators cannot ignore that [exposing students toethical issues] is one of our fundamental responsibilities.
Another expressed the dangers involved in not incorporating
a discussion of ethics into the curriculum:
Without discussing the topic of advertising ethics, advertis-ing very quickly falls into being a device that is amoral, andI think that we have an obligation to work with our studentsto help them understand that advertising is not amoral. It isnot intended to be a vehicle to sell anything to anybody.
Several academic leaders emphasized the importance of helping
students understand that they have choices to make regard-
ing the manner in which they practice their profession. As
one said:
Students dont understand that they have choices. Makingstudents aware of the fact that they can make choicesI thinkthat is more important than anything we can do.
A second academic elaborated:
Our responsibility is to teach students that they do have a
choice in how to communicate with people, and they can doit in a way that does not encroach on peoples rights, modifytheir cultural beliefs, or offend their religious beliefs.
One informant likened discussions of ethical issues to lifetime
career counseling:
The reason these discussions are important is because theyare more along the lines of lifetime career counseling thananything else. Youre really saying to people, Chances are,you are going to be better doing things that are inspiring toyou, and chances are . . . that you are not going to be inspiredby doing things that are harmful to people. Money will onlygo so far.
Some academic leaders, however, asserted that ethics is still
not getting the attention it deserves. One observed: Ethics is
a very important topic. I dont think that many [faculty] are
treating it as seriously as they should. Another said:
Other than a few lectures in a couple of classes, there is no-body really agonizing over ethics too much, and maybe theyshouldnt. This [department] is pretty clearly a commercialenterprise and pretty clearly designed to generate revenuefor business.
Yet another observed:
I dont see many people sitting around talking about eth-ics. Theyre sitting around talking about, Does advertisingwork?
The above comments allude to a worry when there is an em-
phasis on advertising ethics, which can result in ambivalence
toward incorporating ethics into the curriculum, or worse,
omission of ethics. An academic leader elaborated on concerns
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that teaching ethics might have a negative effect on students,
making them less likely to succeed in advertising:
[When we talk about teaching ethics], a reservation gets raisedin one form or another. Hey, were churning out profession-als to be effective in this business; were not churning outsocial workers. Because were churning out professionals tobe effective in this business, we dont want to be, in a sense,
planting tremendous doubts about the efficacy about whatwere doing.
Another asserted, We dont want to turn out people who will
only take on idealistic clients. Yet another expressed concern
about the tenor of discussions of ethics and took a defensive
position:
How come every time we talk about ethics in advertising weend up with advertising bashing? . . . Talking about advertis-ing ethics typically is bashing the profession.
Required Undergraduate Courses with a SubstantialEthics Component
When asked if their undergraduate programs had system-
atically integrated ethics into the curriculum, all academic
leaders answered, Yes. It quickly became clear that they
answered affirmatively because their programs typically have
a required course in which ethics is a substantial component.
The courses have titles such as Advertising and Society or
Mass Communications Law, and they cover law as well as
ethics, typically placing as much or more emphasis on law
as in ethics.
Only one program has a required course totally focused
on advertising ethics. The academic leader reported that the
faculty had debated whether to have a stand-alone ethics
course or to weave ethics into all of the coursework, but the
symbolic value of having a required course with ethics in
the title was the determining factor:
The faculty felt that having ethics as a required piece of thecore . . . where the students see the topic of ethics [as the coursetitle], particularly at the undergraduate level, that really settlesfor them the idea of how critically important ethics is.
Several academic leaders indicated that resources were a
constraint. As one said, Wed like to make ethics a requiredcourse. We just dont have the staff to do that. Others indi-
cated that ethics courses have much competition from other
areas of advertising practice that are evolving quickly. One
informant expressed the departmental philosophy for new
course development as, Generally, we target practice-oriented
issues. Faculty and departments are faced with the question
that one informant raised, Should we take up one of our rare
required spots to have ethics?
One informant indicated that ethics is seen as more cen-
tral to public relations than to advertising. As this person
explained:
Some of us teach public relations as a management issuenot a marketing discipline. When you begin to teach it as amanagement discipline, you begin to focus on the issue thatthe real essence of public relations is changing organizationalbehavior to better conform to the values and expectations ofthe publics upon which your organization depends for survival.Ethics becomes a core responsibility in PR.
A systematic approach to incorporating ethics into the cur-
riculum would be expected to involve more than part of one
course, but academics were often unsure of how and in which
other courses ethics was being taught. Perhaps this was because
the heightened emphasis on ethics is relatively new:
The reason that I am so vague [about when and how ethics istaught] is that the ethics component and sensitivity has comeabout during the past two to three years.
One academic leader described the process of integrating eth-
ics into the curriculum as organic rather than organized. In
fact, none of the academic informants described an organized
or systematic approach to integrating ethics into the courses
other than the one required course. One suggested that a
departmental directive to take a more organized approach
would be helpful, but none of the academics reported such a
directive or a systematic approach. On the other hand, another
leader asserted that strong norms regarding academic freedom
provided an impediment to a more organized approach:
Ive never heard anybody talk about how we cover ethics inspecific courses. . . . I think that people would really bristleif we told them that they had to cover ethics. . . . Academicfreedom is strong in this college.
Another informant suggested that her departments emphasis
on ethics was less systematic than that of her colleagues in
business schools. Because coverage of ethics is evaluated for
business school accreditation, the number of hours dedicated
to ethics and specific areas of ethics instruction covered have
to be documented.
Incorporating Ethics into the Graduate Curriculum
Perspectives and practices regarding ethics in graduate pro-
grams differed from those of undergraduate programs. While
all programs have a required course with a substantial ethics
component in their undergraduate curriculum, none had a
similar required course in their graduate curriculum. The pri-
mary reasons given were that graduate programs are often cus-
tomized to the individual student and that graduate students
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are older and more experienced, and thus, less in need of ethics
in the curriculum. Two of the masters programs had elective
courses with a significant advertising ethics component. In
some Ph.D. programs, students can opt for an elective course
in mass communication law, but none of the programs require
or offer Ph.D.-level courses specifically on ethics.
Analysis of Advertising Textbooks
To understand better how students are introduced to advertis-
ing ethics, we examined seven leading advertising and market-
ing communication texts. Table 1 lists each of the textbooks
and the pages of coverage each gives to important topics related
to ethics, advertising regulation, and societal and economic
impacts of advertising. As elaborated below, these texts take
a broad-brush approach to the coverage of ethics. Only Belch
and Belch (2007) has two chapters devoted to ethics-related
topics. Also, it is the only textbook with any mention of ethi-
cal theory or reference to sources of theoretical discussion of
ethics in marketing and advertising.Content and placement of the chapters with ethical discus-
sion vary. Such chapters cover social, regulatory, and ethical
issues. Two texts (Arens 2006; Lane, Whitehall King, and
Russell 2005) also have substantial coverage of economic
arguments concerning advertising, mostly positive ones, and
the chapters begin with these arguments. Only Shimps text
(2007) begins with a discussion of ethical issues, and it is the
only one to include environmental issues. The placement of
these chapters is interesting in that four of them are rather
early (chapter 3 or 4 out of approximately 20). Two texts place
the chapter with ethical discussion as the last one in the book,
and one has it as chapter 20 out of 22.The titles of these chapters are illuminating. The Wells,
Moriarty, and Burnett (2006) text uses advertising and society
as its chapter title. As noted above, two chapters focus initially
on economic issues and then move to social and regulatory/
legal issues (Arens 2006; Lane, Whitehall King, and Russell
2005), and their titles reflect these topics. The Duncan (2005)
and OGuinn et al. (2006) titles are virtually identical: Social,
Ethical and Legal/Regulatory Issues/Aspects of Advertising.
Belch and Belchs (2007) first chapter title reflects its focus
on regulation of advertising and promotion, while the second
chapter title indicates that the content pertains to evaluating
the social, ethical, and economic aspects of advertising. Shimpsbook (2007) lists ethics first and refers to environmental is-
sues in the title.
As noted above, the textbooks take a broad-brush approach
as is indicated by the low numbers (mostly one page or less)
in Table 1. Like principles of marketing texts, breadth rather
than depth is the order of the day. Some topics such as regu-
lation and self-regulation warrant greater attention, and the
FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is examined in some depth
in every book. Only three other social and legal topics receive
more than two pages of coverage: commercial speech/First
Amendment (Lane, Whitehall King, and Russell 2005), ste-
reotypes in advertising (Belch and Belch 2007), and targeting
of children and teens (Shimp 2007).
Ethics, the focus of our analysis, has uneven treatment across
the books. The Lane, Whitehall King, and Russell (2005)
text only contains one box on the 4As code, and the Wells,Moriarty, and Burnett (2006) book has only a few pages on the
topic. A strength of the Wells text is that a helpful distinction
is made between personal, professional, and social ethics (pp.
8688). The others have several pages devoted to defining
and discussing ethics codes that are followed in advertising
agencies. A trend in these texts, like principles of marketing,
is the use of ethics boxes. The Arens (2006) text has one in
virtually every chapter, while three others have ethics boxes
in more than one-third of the chapters. The boxes in Duncan
(2005) are much longer and more substantive than the ones
in OGuinn et al. (2006).
Many additional topics that could be considered ethical areoften covered in other parts of these texts. For example, puffery,
targeting children and teens, sex appeal, and manipulation are
all issues that one might classify as ethical, and they are some-
times examined elsewhere in these books. As indicated above,
notably absent from all of the textbooks except one was any
mention of ethical theory or reference to sources of theoretical
discussion of ethics in marketing and advertising.
Managerial Insights on Ethical Decision Making
We began by asking industry leaders broad questions about
the state of advertising ethics, and their responses are re-ported above. We proceeded to ask how one can encourage
ethical decision making in an advertising agency. We turn
now to their views. Their responses dealt with two general
topics: (1) barriers to ethical decision making, and (2) the
role of organizational culture. Perceived barriers emanated
from a general ambivalence toward management, the client-
based nature of the advertising business, and the pressures
of constantly having to deliver new ideas under deadline
pressure. The leaders widely recognized the importance of an
organizational culture that supports ethical decision making,
and they elaborated on the crucial role of agency leaders in
creating such a culture.
Management
In business, management systems, processes, policies, and
codes are important ways that organizations encourage ethi-
cal behavior. Advertising industry leaders, however, expressed
antipathy regarding methods of management. For example,
one practitioner asserted, Building process in and of itself has
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TABLE1
Compar
isono
fLea
ding
Advert
ising
Tex
tboo
ks:Page
Coverageo
fEconomic
,Social,R
egu
latory,a
ndEthicalIs
sues
Au
thor
Wel
ls,
Belchan
d
Lane,
King,
OGu
inn,A
llen,
Moriar
ty,a
nd
Arens
Belch
Duncan
andRussell
andSemen
ik
Shimp
Burnet
t
Year
2006
2007
2005
2005
2006
2007
2006
Edition
10th
7th
2nd
16th
4th
7th
7th
Chapter/lastchapter
3/18
21,22/22
20/22
24/24
4/20
3/20
3/19
Openingscenario
Abercrombieand
OTC
Censorship
Database
Nutrition
Offensive
FitchQuarterly
advertisin
g
marketing
plus
advertising
DoveBeauty
transfat
(CalvinKlein,
labeling
Benetton,etc.)
Econom
icimpac
t(benefits)
GDP
(1)
Abundanceprinciple
(1)
Argumentsproandcon
(2)
Choice
(1)
Economiesofscale
(1)
Addedvalue
(1)
(1)
Social
impac
t
Controversy/problems
(1)
(1)
(2)
(1)
(2)
(1)
Stereotypes
(2)
(3)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(2)
Proliferation
(2)
(.5)
Taste/offensive
(1)
(2)
(.5)
(1)
(1)
Unintendedmessages
(1)
Manipulation
(1)
(1)
(2)
(.5)
Sexappeal/sexism
(1)
(.5)
(1)
Obesity
(1)
(.5)
Demandcreation:Mirror
versusshaper
(1)
(continues)
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TABLE1(continued)
ComparisonofLeadingAdvertisingTextbooks:PageCoverageofEconomic
,Social,Regulatory,andEthicalIs
sues
Author
Wells,
Belchan
d
Lane,King,
OGuinn,Allen,
Moriarty,and
Arens
Belch
Duncan
andRussell
andSemenik
Shimp
Burnett
Criticisms(micro)
Puffery
(1)
(1.5
)
(2)
(.5)
(.5)
(1)
Dangerousproducts
(tobacco,alcohol)
(1)
(1)
(.5)
(2)
(1)
(2)
Targeting:children,teens
(1)
(2)
(1)
(3)
(1)
Targeting:elderlyand
economicallydisadvantag
ed
(2)
(1)
Advertainment
(1)
Legal/regulatory
International
(1)
(1)
Costs+benefits
(1)
Commercialspeech:
FirstAmendment
(1)
(2)
(1)
(4)
(2)
Privacy
(1)
LanhamA
ct
(1)
(2)
Trademark+copyright
(1)
(1)
Agencies
FTC
(4)
(8)
(1.5
)
(3)
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Spring 2009 97
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Notes:OTC=over-the-counter;GDP=grossdomesticproduct;FTC=FederalTradeCommission;FDA=FoodandDrug
Administration;FCC=FederalCommunicationsCommission;
BATF=BureauofAlcohol,Tobacco,andFirearms;CARU
=ChildrensAdv
ertisingReviewUnit;BBB=BetterBusinessBureau;NARC=NationalAdvertisingReviewCouncil;
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=NationalAdvertisingD
ivision;4As=AmericanAssociationofAdve
rtisingAgencies;AAF=AmericanAdvertisingFederation.
Numbersinparenthesesindicatethepagesofcoveragegiventothetopicint
hedesignatedtextbook.
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zero value. Another said, Ive never seen a unilateral process
that can be applied to advertising. While holding companies
have policies related to obeying the law encompassing issues
such as discrimination and sexual harassment, we found scant
evidence of codes of ethics or other management processes at
the agency level. In fact, some practitioners expressed skepti-
cism regarding whether it would even be possible to create a
viable code of ethics, especially for messages. One informantsaid: Frankly, I think that it would be impossible to write
something sensible. Youre trying to define good taste and
responsibility, and I dont know how you define it.
The ambivalence toward management appeared to be due,
at least in part, to a perceived tension between management
and creativity. Management processes are often thought to
be a potential impediment to creativity. As one practitioner
said: Advertising is unlike manufacturing in which process
is required to create a product. Process can get in the way in
advertising. Process can interfere with and hamper creativ-
ity. Creative people are not like other business people, their
work tasks are not the same, and thus, managing them andproviding them with processes that encourage ethical decision
making is difficult:
A lot of people who exist in our business are not businesspeople. They are artists. We dont pay them to think in termsof P&L and what their ethical responsibility is. We ask them todo what has never been done before, to drive to higher levelsof creativity, and that is an onerous task. . . . As a result, thosepeople are a different breed . . . and it is a bit difficult to say,Now heres your process [to be ethical]. Getting them tofill out time cards at times is hard enough.
It was perceived to be difficult to institute processes that en-
courage ethical behavior without restricting the freedom that
creativity requires to flourish:
The question then becomes, How can you integrate processinto advertising agencies in a way that does not hinder cre-ativity? . . . It involves striking a balance between havingenough process for control and accountability and havingenough freedom to do the job.
Our informants observations seemed to be in sync with
the description of the advertising industry given by Shona
Seifert, the Ogilvy & Mather executive who was convicted for
fraud: an industry that has historically placed a higher value
on creativity and ideas than process (Creamer 2005). Ms.Seifert wrote this statement in the preface to a code of ethics
for advertising that the judge who sentenced her required
her to write. (The code can be accessed at http://adage.com/
article?article_id=46685.)
A minority of our informants argued that the advertising
industrys antipathy toward management has had ramifica-
tions. For example, the advertising community has not had the
same emphasis as big businessits clientson understanding
and applying management concepts and approaches such as
those related to ethical decision making:
Big business (our clients) has paid a lot of attention to orga-nizational development and change management, but thoseareas havent been a focus or a commitment inside the agencyworld. Instead weve focused on human resourcesfindingtalent, hiring talent, retaining talent. How can you instituteand implement a change management program? How can youdesign an organization to be ethical?
Relatedly, advertising agencies have not had the same focus
on management training and education related to ethics that
other businesses have had. As one practitioner asserted, Ad-
vertising agencies are too cool for school. Yet another noted
that training in the advertising business has concentrated on
doing better advertising and selling things to the client
rather than on management practices. Whether or not the
industry leaders are correct in their assessment that manage-
ment processes necessarily inhibit creativity, it seems to bethe conventional wisdom.
Dynamics of the Advertising Industry
Other barriers to ethical decision making are related to the
dynamics of the industrythe deadlines, the fast pace of the
work, and the constant pressure to produce new and better
ideas. These pressures, our informants told us, can cause ad-
vertising practitioners to lose perspective:
Whats unique to this industry is that you are so consumed
on a daily basis with coming up with ideas for your clients.It consumes you because clients need ideas faster and betterthan ever before. Theres no time to take a deep breath. . . . Thedeadline pressuretheres no time to get a bigger picture.
Client-Based Nature of Advertising
Our industry leaders identified another set of barriers to ethical
decision making that emanate from the client-based nature of
the advertising business and the appropriate role of an agent
in ethical decision making. Advertising agencies typically have
many diverse clients, and as a practitioner explained, responsi-
bility for decisions related to a code of ethics may be perceived
to be in the purview of the client, not the agency:
A lot of our clients have developed their own codes. . . . Wereworking within the guidelines of different clients. We havebusiness practices that ensure that things are truthful andproven, but whether you advertise to these people or howin our business, that is driven by the clients themselves.We need to mold and adapt to what their core ethical beliefsystem is.
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Spring 2009 99
Perceiving an obligation to mold and adapt to a clients ethi-
cal standards can be problematic. A practitioner spoke of this
predicament:
[W]hen you have clients that say, I want to do this on a pornosite, or I want to do thiswhatever. And the [agency]people say, Is that really the right thing to do? And theclient says, Well, it is what I want you to do.
Delegation of ethical decision making to the client and ratio-
nalizing that the client is always right are problems seen
in many businesses (Drumwright and Murphy 2004). The
industry leaders whom we interviewed for this paper did not
agree that such delegation was appropriate, but they acknowl-
edged that the client-based nature of advertising exacerbates
the problem.
Some asserted that the advertising industrys emphasis on
clientsa client obsessionhas other negative effects that
are more subtle. That is, the strong focus on serving clients
detracts from the agencys emphasis on managing its own
employees in a respectful and ethical way and on developing
a culture that supports ethical behavior.
Advertising agencies put more emphasis on clients than on thepeople working on the clients accounts. This client obsessionresults in not enough emphasis on people and culture.
Organizational Culture
Industry leaders generally viewed organizational culture, rather
than management processes, as key to mitigating the barriers
to ethical decision making and encouraging ethical sensitivity.
As one executive stated:
I think that culture is probably the most important factor ofall when it comes to ethics. The degree to which an organiza-tion really accepts and buys into high standards is a cultureissue and a leadership issue.
While our informants were quick to endorse the importance of
culture, one executive asserted that the nature of the advertis-
ing industry and the people who populate it predispose many
industry participants to be less interested in culture than in
the work itself:
We have to be right, and we have to be creative. . . . So wehire scientists and artists, and both scientists and artists arenot as interested in the culture around them as they are intheir art or their science.
Leaders were viewed as crucial to creating and maintaining
culture both through the example they set and through the
programs they initiate. As one practitioner said, You create
culture by example. Another practitioner spoke of the pow-
erful negative effect that top executives can have when they
behave unethically: The first time a senior person is known
to say one thing and do something else or is known to have
misrepresented something, it starts to erode the culture, and
it goes down from there.
Agency executives reported that they often use storytelling
to communicate the importance of ethical values. As one said,
The best thing that happens to bring something [related toethics] to life is storytelling. Another informant said:
We talk about our values and how we came up with them. Wetell stories of our culture and our values. . . . Weve institu-tionalized redundancy without being boring. . . . Redundancyis the queen of learning. Tell people the same thing, but tellit differently.
Practitioners also pointed to the importance of openly and
candidly identifying unacceptable and unethical behavior and
of talking about it. As one practitioner said, You fess up when
you mess up. Another said:
You call out [unethical] behavior with clarity and candor.Because we live in more of a gray world, it makes respondingto those issues . . . all the more important.
The importance of broadly disseminating information about
behavior that is not acceptable was also noted: When I spot a
problem, I talk about it philosophically without calling names
in newsletters, e-mails, and speeches. By exhibiting ethical
leadership, helping workers identify ethical issues, and gen-
erating organizational discourse (both positive and negative)
about them, the practitioners quoted above believed they were
assisting their coworkers to avoid problems.
Informant Recommendations
for Future Research
As we noted earlier, academic research in advertising ethics
is thin and inconclusive in many areas; as such, there is need
for more research. When we asked our industry leaders about
research that academics could do on advertising ethics that
would be helpful, some expressed skepticism regarding the
usefulness and viability of such an undertaking. For example,
one industry leader said:
Most academic opinions about and observations about the realworld of business are irrelevant. I think that having academicsgive recommendations on how to conduct business in the realworld is a waste of time. . . . I think there is a big disconnectbetween how the academic world sees the world and how theworld really is.
Others, however, called for a closer link between the academy
and the profession, with more dialogue and greater collaborative
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100 The Journal of Advertising
efforts. For instance, another industry leader, arguing that
academics in general and ethicists in particular should not be
discounted as eggheads, called for a better partnership.
Some industry informants recommended research on topics
pertaining to management issues and ethics. One suggested a
project that involves studying the cultures of companies and
advertising agencies to identify things that companies with
great cultures do that agencies do not do that would includeand yet not be limited to topics related to ethics. Another
proposed a study on understanding the organizational change
needed to create a more ethical agency organization:
If you are asking people to