http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/community/columns/other-columns/e3i0401622f490c0f88ede185fa50d4b910?pn=1
Post your answers by Wednesday, April 15th at 12pm (noon).
1. Should political advertising and politicians be held to the same regulations as product advertising? Why or why not?
2. Does the FCC "sitting the ad dance out when it comes to a political ad's actual factual content" have more of a negative effect on consumers with product or political advertising? Why or why not?
3. The article says "freedom of speech" is often used as an excuse to run ethically-challenging ads. Discuss how the First Amendment presents advertising conflicts.
4. What implications does the phenomena "source amnesia" have on advertising? How can "source amnesia" present ethical issues in future advertising campaigns?
5. Discuss the current "truth in advertising" procedure of the FTC, FCC and broadcasters (page 2, paragraph 3). Is this procedure adequate? Why or why not?
1. Politicians should be held to even stricter regulations than product advertising. If a "trusted" politician lies to the public, than the American people are being mislead. The political debits have become increasingly more petty and less about the hard facts. It is these lax regulations that allow the candidates to go back and fourth about insignificant dramas. The result is a misinformed and confused public.
ReplyDelete2. This issue will definitely have more of a negative effect with political advertising. If a product misleads the consumer, in most cases this will result in a disappointed customer and the corporation will face most of the consequences.
ReplyDeleteIf we are mislead by "The Leaders" than we have the much greater consequence of being an uneducated public. This may lead to the loss of liberty and even freedom. We can not make "choices" if we are uninformed or mislead.
3. Advertising is primarily an art. advertisers use design, concepts and words to attract and pursue the viewer. Since this field is art, there is a certain amount of expression that goes into advertising work. The fifth amendment states our right to freedom of speech or in other words freedom of expression. Some advertisers may feel that regulations placed on advertisements by legislative bodies will impede on their freedom of expression. Many provocative photos in ads have raised debate to weather the ad is provocative or artistic.
ReplyDelete4. Source amnesia presents an issue in advertising if an agency tries to take advantage of this phenomena. If an agency to stretch the truth or flat lie about their product, they would be taking advantage of this phenomena by saturating the public with their advertisements. In the future if regulatory bodies choose not to recognize the implication of this phenomena in both product and political advertising, than advertising and politics as a whole may become increasingly more deceptive.
ReplyDelete5. The current procedure, according to this article, is sadly inadequate.No wonder advertisers have a bad wrap. First the truth in ads are left up to the broadcasters who aren't responsible for the ads either. The process has already failed, leaving no one really responsible for anything. Nothing in this process supports or motivated self-regulation. Second they wait til they reach a quota of complaints. Nothing is being done to prevent complaints in the first place. If no one says anything they will push forward with the ad.Consumers have to actually complain before the facts are reviewed. This system is a complete failure. Regulations must be upheld by the legislative bodies that protect the public from deceptive advertising ad a whole with no exceptions.
ReplyDelete1. Any form of advertising should be held up to a standard of truth and ethics. It doesn't matter if it is a product, service, or politics, the establishment of truth is what matters. The image of the politician is held very high in what they say because people hold on to there words and what they advertise as true or "what they support" is taken seriously. Just because what is said or promised cannot be backed up by scientific data or secondary data, it still needs to be able to stand alone as truth.
ReplyDelete2. political advertising is the one to suffer the most because its at its own level of representation and how it will affect its viewers and believers. when dealing with consumers and products, it will just disappoint the consumer and the company will receive a bad reputation for being careless of what they are promoting in for their products and services through advertising. Politicians care about one thing, winning to do what they wish to set out to do in office. companies have a mission when it comes to their consumer -- keeping them loyal and wanting more and sticking to their brand or services. with politicians, its a set deal when they are winged in office and if they play nice they stay versus a company in which everything they say and do will affect them in the long run.
3. "freedom of speech" allows anyone to have the right to speak freely in what they wish to have spoken. when dealing with advertising, especially with political campaigns and politicians, its taken advantage of and loses its meaning. Certain things should be spoken for other people to know, but to purely mock a person or the competition just because "you can" is unethical. its their word against yours, and whoever has the higher attention grabbing audience wins.
4. source amnesia is when a lie is told in such a way to be made into truth, making the person receiving the information believe what is told even though they know better. In advertising it can twist peoples perspective and have them side with what the advertising says without doing their own research or listening to outside sources.
as for the future in advertising, people will not trust what is told unless its from a reliable source they can depend upon like their peers, but even then its not always reliable truth because they could have been told wrong as well.
5. this is not adequate because it skips out on the responsibility and control that the FTC and FCC have. Just because it is political based should not leave it in the hands of the broadcaster to judge. the broadcasters could be paid extra to run the campaign or even have a bias view on who they support and what they find to work and not work for their station. Even the complaints that might come because the contents might be inappropriate does not mean it will be removed. the FTC and the FCC have the final say so, even then it doesn't guarantee that something will happen because they get more involved. they are very relaxed in their choices in the promotion of advertising that is not product or service based. The odd thing is, being a politician makes the person's time and order a service for the people so they should automatically fall under the order and regulations of the FTC and the FCC