Let's Talk Ethics at 11am!

ETHICAL DILEMMA
A luxury fashion designer’s most recent ad campaign is striking a nerve! The ad features a woman in a sexual pose wearing only a diamond necklace. The ad campaign was placed in women’s fashion magazines and on billboards. The ad received only three complaints from the magazine but hundreds from the billboards, citing offensive, degrading to women and unsuitable for a public space. The fashion designer claimed the ad is a work of art, and not meant to be offensive to women.

QUESTIONS
What was the core of the issue – the image of the woman in the ad OR the placement of the ad in magazines and billboards?

On-campus Credit Card Advertising Hurts Students

Read the following article: On-campus Credit Card Advertising Hurts Students

http://www.necn.com/Boston/Business/Oncampus-credit-card-advertising-hurts-students/1206662806.html

Post your answers by Wednesday, March 11th at 12pm (noon).
1. The Better Business Bureau is an organization for the public that helps to regulate ethical business practices. In this case the BBB took the side of advertisers and placed the responsibility in the college students hands. Is it unethical for regulatory bodies such as the BBB, AAF or FTC to choose not to represent those asking for action (such as consumers), but to stand with the opposing party?
2. One concern was that students getting behind on payments results in a domino effect; late penalties result in a rate increase. We’ve discussed the ethics regarding “fine print”. Is it ethical for companies to utilize this tactic in regards to people’s finances? How does this tactic differ from misrepresentation in an ad?
3. Students said that they’ve been bombarded with credit card ads, incentives to sign up and given large credit limits. This has resulted in thousands in debt, losing track of payments and distraction from schoolwork. Do you believe that college students are in the category of “vulnerable audiences”? Why or why not? Should there be a band on campus advertising of credit cards, and would this be a viable solution to the problem?

Let's Talk Ethics at 11am!

ETHICAL DILEMMA
Sarah is working on a women’s fashion brand that is marketed to teenage girls. An issue concerning the campaign has begun to concern her. The models selected for the campaign are young and extremely thin. Sarah recently has read some research regarding the negative effects that ultra thin female images in the media can have on teenage girls and their conceptions of beauty, and she feels uncomfortable about the images of beauty portrayed in the campaign.

When she starting asking questions about the models, she was told that the client liked this type of model and that it was the client’s choice to use any type of model he wanted. Sarah isn’t sure what to do. She does not want to do anything to constrain her team’s creativity.

QUESTION

What would you suggest Sarah do? To keep the client happy, should she keep her concerns regarding the models to herself, or should she voice negative effects this campaign could have on young girls?

Burger King Under Fire for Whopper Virgins Campaign

Read the following article: Burger King Under Fire

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3546969/Burger-King-under-fire-for-Whopper-Virgins-taste-test-challenge.html

Post your answers by Wednesday, March 4th at 12pm (noon).

1. Describe the type of advertising research method that was used in order to create this campaign (i.e. descriptive, causal, exploratory, secondary, primary, etc) and why this research method was chosen. Provide facts and examples from your research textbook and classroom discussions.

2. Provide an analysis as to why or why not this campaign crosses an ethical/unethical line. Support your analysis with facts and evidence from your ethics textbook and classroom discussions.

3. This campaign has been called "insensitive" by critics. Did the agency/client enact creative self-regulation, or was the possibility of controversy worth the risk and overall campaign publicity?

Let's Talk Ethics at 11am!

ETHICAL DILEMMA
Lauren is the creative director at a major ad agency. She heard of some
billing practices involving a print project for a candy client that bothered her. It turns out that the print costs for the project had exceeded budget by $20,000. (The project budget was only $30,000.)

Asking the candy client for an additional $20,000 would be a problem. A fellow agency staffer struck a deal with the printer and added $20,000 to the bill of another of the agency’s large clients, an automobile company, who had a much larger budget and could afford the large bill.

This solution seemed to work out for all. The candy client did not know how far over budget the agency had gone; the printer got paid for all of the work it had done; and the agency did not have to eat its mistake.

QUESTION

If the agency had had a code of ethics, how could this over-budget situation been remedied in a more ethical manner?

Truth & Ethics in Advertising

Read the following article: Ethics in Advertising

http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/speaker_pres/data/3001

This article provides a synopsis of our classroom discussions, lectures and textbook readings. While some topics we have yet to discuss, such as advertising to children, this article will provide you with thoughts and ideas for upcoming ethical topics. (Links to some of the commercial examples cited within the article were not available, although you may be able to find them on online sites.)

Post your answers by Wednesday, February 25th at 12pm (noon).

Write an ethical analysis, or your takeaway, from this article.

Analysis to include areas such as:

- What thoughts, questions or issues arose will reading this article?

- The author asks some poignant questions throughout the article. Do you agree/disagree with the author's viewpoint regarding ethical issues in advertising? How would you answer those questions?

- What other areas within advertising pose ethical challenges for advertisers?

Please support your analysis with facts and evidence from lectures, discussions, textbooks and other sources. Avoid the "I" or "Me" opinions.

Let's Talk Ethics at 11am!

ETHICAL DILEMMA
“The city’s best hamburger” is the slogan for “Billy’s Burgers”, a local burger joint. How can Billy’s Burgers make this claim? Billy’s Burgers states that they sell a higher volume of burgers per day then their competitors, and used the number of customers who placed orders to substantiate the claim. The competition feels the claim is not justified as Billy’s Burgers is located in the center of town, near a high traffic area. For the competition, it’s simply the factor of location that provides Billy’s Burgers with more customer volume. It has nothing to do with the quality or taste of the hamburger.

Questions

Is Billy’s Burgers substantiation for the slogan “The city’s best hamburger” justified?