1. Advertising Ethics
Advertising is so obviously useful that it’s surprising that it has got such a bad name.
Ads tell us what is new, what is available, where, when, and for how much.
They tell us about a product’s (alleged) quality and specifications.
Ads often exaggerate or are otherwise misleading; some even lie.

2. Though advertising is sometimes defined as "information," this fails to distinguish it from the type of information found in Consumer Reports.
Most advertisements contain precious little information in any case: "Got Milk?" and "Just Do It" are nearly empty statements.

3. Advertising Ethics
The primary function of advertisements is to sell products to prospective buyers. It is publicly addressed to a mass audience, so it has a necessarily widespread social effect.
It is also intended to create desire and a belief in consumers that the product will satisfy the desire.

4. Advertising's critics
Advertising's critics point out that it has several harmful effects on society.
First, its psychological effects are damaging in that it de-bases the tastes of consumers by inculcating materialistic values about how to achieve happiness.

5. CRITICS Survival of media on Ad. Problems:
Encourage excessive expending even debt.
Misleads and deceive.
Treating public like morons.
Degrading women.

6. Production costs
Another major criticism of advertising is that it is wasteful.
Those who make this type of objection point to the distinction between production costs and selling costs.
Production costs are the costs of the resources consumed in producing a product.

7. Selling Costs
Selling costs are the additional costs of resources that do not go into the product itself, but rather are incurred as a result of persuading consumers to purchase it.
The resources consumed by advertising, according to this theory, add nothing to the utility of the product.

8. Advertisers’ View
Advertisers counter that advertisements do add information to the product, but of course, the information could be supplied more directly and inexpensively.
They also say, however, that advertising creates desire and thus is responsible for a gradually expanding economy.

9. Advertisers’ View
There is considerable controversy over whether advertising is responsible for the growing economy.
However, advertising appears to be most successful at shifting consumption from one producer to another, not at expanding consumption generally.

10. Advertisers’ View
Even if it could expand consumption, theorists do not agree that this would be good.
Increased consumption leads, among other things, to increased pollution and depletion of resources.

11. Advertisers’ View
Though some critics have also blamed advertising for monopolies, there is no conclusive evidence that advertising and monopolistic markets are connected.

12. John Kenneth Galbraiths’ View
John Kenneth Galbraith and other critics have long argued that advertising merely manipulates consumers, creating desires solely to absorb industrial output.
Physical desires, such as the desire for food and shelter, are perfectly normal.

13. But the psychological desires that are inspired by advertising are not under the consumer's control in the same way that physical desires are, which puts the firm (instead of the individual) in control.

14. Galbraith’s view
If Galbraith’s view is correct, then advertising violates the individual's right to choose freely for himself or herself.
It is not clear, however, that this view is correct, and theorists such as F. A. von Hayek have pointed out that psychic wants have been around longer than advertising in any case.

15. Advertising & its Effects
The most common criticism of advertising concerns is its effect on the consumer's beliefs.
Because advertising is a form of communication, it can be as truthful or deceptive as any other form of communication.