6 - Advertising and marketing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
(T. S. Eliot)One cannot defend production as satisfying wants if that production creates the wants.
(J. K. Galbraith)Life is not a spectacle but a predicament.
(St Augustine)High-powered, hard-sell, glossy advertising is one of the most characteristic products of the late twentieth century. It seems, by the influence we ascribe to it and the seriousness with which we often judge it, almost a modern art form. From jingles to grand opera, from poster campaigns to television mini-sagas, anything may be pressed into service to sell everything from frozen peas to Prime Ministers. Advertising can be witty, intelligent, crude, offensive; it can make us laugh or even cry but it is aimed always at winning our support for the products it presents. Advertising may amuse us and brighten our lives but this is not its primary purpose, which is to sell. Vast sums of money are spent by businesses which believe that their success is largely dependent on their marketing and advertising, without which they think they would lose their competitive edge. Business uses advertising to convey information to consumers about its products. There would be no point in producing goods if nobody knew about them. Thus described, there hardly seems to be an ethical problem here: advertising is simply another way of securing long-term owner value.
WHAT IS THE QUESTION?
Yet there is often a general, if vague, unease with the whole area of marketing and advertising.
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- Business Ethics at Work , pp. 97 - 114Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995