Morality of Persuasive Advertising By: Gaurav Pant Prashant Pal

What is advertising? Communication from a specific source that intends to inform and influence the audience so that they believe something and/or behave in a certain way Types of advertising 1) Informative and 2) Persuasive advertising Informative advertising focuses on selling a product by calling the customer's need and interests. Persuasive advertising focuses on "stimulating demand”.

Benefits of Advertising Advertising helps consumers decide what to buy Informs about the existence of new products Advertisers claim to be helping consumers to freely choose how to best satisfy their needs and wants Some advertisements are funny and address moral issues to sell their product, like JAGO RE (Tata tea) and IDEA 3-G ads

What is Persuasion? “A symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or behaviors regarding an issue through the transmission of a message in an atmosphere of free choice” Self-persuasion is key. People are not forced; they are instead free to choose.

Persuasive Advertising Creating a demand is the main motive Selling people a product by changing the autonomy Do these types of ads make people unhappy? Example: Fairness creams, slimming belt, deodorant, alcohol Some of these ads like cigarettes and alcohol actually claims that people who are stylish, cool and ambitious are smokers and drinkers

Minette E. Drumwright and Patrick E Minette E. Drumwright and Patrick E. Murphy interviewed 51 advertising practitioners who work in 29 advertising agencies in eight cities two persisting problems among advertising practitioners “Moral muteness”—the unwillingness of practitioners to acknowledge and discuss ethical problems. “Moral myopia”—the inability even to see clearly ethical issues when they arise.

Robert Arrington’s view Instances portrayed in ads are “Puffery”. Puffery is not just bragging; it is bragging carefully designed to achieve a definite effect. In purchasing something we may think we are free, when in fact our act is completely controlled by factors in our environment and advertising is one of them But Theodore Levitt argues that if we remove puffery from ads then they will just nearly be empirical descriptions and do not offer joy and adventure “We need automobiles not just for transport but for feeling of power and status they give”

Is advertising information or creation of desire To answer this we need to know what is involved in autonomy Autonomous desire Rational desire Free choice Control or manipulation

What fairness creams persuade people? Dark and brown complexion is not good and its ugly You can’t achieve success in life until you are fair People will actually make fun of yours if you are dark

What is the ground reality? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unlabeled_Renatto_Luschan_Skin_color_map.png

How actually these ads work? Persuasive ads are subliminal, i.e. they affect one’s mind without their being aware of it. If you are aware of seeing/hearing it, then it’s not subliminal advertising Most of the ads target our Unconscious Desires of sex and power. For example advertisements of deodorants. Persuasive advertising overrides our autonomy (which is immoral)

Does such ads really make you unhappy? These type of advertisements create gap between what we have and what we want Happiness is proportional to satisfaction But now a days people always want a better form of what they already have 1. Even a slim guy want a better body or abs 2. Guy with a decent hairstyle uses hair gel to impress a girl

Robert Crisp’s View Persuasive advertising is immoral because Because it overrides our autonomy It makes us desire products without us realizing. Persuasive ads coerces us into a constant state of dissatisfaction

References.. Advertising, Autonomy, and the Creation of Desire by Roger Crisp Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 6, No. 5 (Jul., 1987), pp. 413-418 Advertising and Behavior Control by Robert L. Arrington, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Feb., 1982), pp. 3-12 Getting to Persuasion by John L. Mcreeky, Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Oct., 2001), pp. 163-169 The morality of advertising by Theodore Levitt, Harvard Business Review, 1970 Ethics and Advertising: Moral Muteness, Moral Myopia, and Moral Imagination by Minette E. Drumwright , The University of Texas at Austin Patrick E. Murphy, University of Notre Dame