Blog #6 Ethics and Advertising

Advertising Ethics always have and always will be a hot button issue.  Depending on each person’s outlook on life and beliefs, they make a judgment on what is “ethical.”  Sexual images and content that objectifies a certain demographic (mostly women) is always a topic that companies walk the line with.

Take this Burger King ad for example – obviously it is a sexual advertisement. And it is quite apparent that it was purposely meant to come off this way. If the ad were just to have the two sandwiches and the same tag line “It will blow your mind away,” no one would think anything of the ad. I would predict that it would flop because there is no “wow” factor. As soon as you put the image of the woman in the ad, it can be perceived many different ways:

Discrimination of Women
Humorous (perhaps)
Confusion

I would like to focus on the fashion industry for a little bit. Diesel is a company that has always been controversial, and here is why -- 

This ad by Diesel I agree is stupid and crossing the line. It is bad enough to show young girls that it is okay to behave this way (that is clearly illegal) but to also bash being at all intelligent.  Diesel has always had controversial ads but I found this one particularly important to the subject of ethics.  Again, Diesel did the job of catching my attention, but I don't believe this ad brought any good attention. What I gather from this ad is,
"Girls, it is far more fun to be stupid and shake your boobs around than to read a book." 

Just for fun, here is another Diesel ad -- 

Yeah, this is obviously not ethical. Somehow Diesel has been known for this kind of advertisement and keeps going with it. These ads are a perfect example of crossing the line of ethics, but being recognized for it.

These are only a few examples. The advertisement does not personally offend me. I internalize it and think Burger King kind of stepped over the line with the sexual innuendo, but it is also brilliant because every person who walks by this ad or sees it in a magazine will stop and look. The general public probably talked about this ad for a while after it came out. I am sure that is exactly the reaction that Burger King wanted from it. People I imagine are still talking about the Diesel ads. Just for the record, I think being smart is way cooler than flashing my boobs to a camera. 

When does a human’s mind become numb to sexual images?  I have pondered this fact a lot since the beginning of the semester. In class when we were watching “Killing Us Softly 4,” I did not see those images that she showed in the documentary as offensive as she did. I always see sexual ads as a reason for money and attention. What alarms me is the fact that I now know that my mind is numb from being offended by these images because I have seen so many of them on TV, magazines, newspapers and the internet my whole life.  After thinking this through I can understand the statistics that the documentary stated about eating disorders and low self-esteem. Women are constantly being told to act as sexual beings and dumb ourselves down as well.  The fashion industry has geared toward making women objects of sex other than a form of art (like in the ads shown on Killing Us Softly 4)

What is an ethical ad? The line is so blurred that there are many ways to answer that question. Personal morals and beliefs are the basis of most answers to the ethics question. I am curious to see what is "ethical" in the future, and how numbness to this kind of material will advance.

All Images Taken from Bing Images