Essay title - Advertisement Company Information
Whether you are walking down the corridor of a street way or whether you are driving in your car; wherever you pass by whether it is indoor or outdoor, you will definitely see advertisement. It has been part of our everyday life that we will not miss any advertisement. The history of advertising started in the early 17th century when the first advertisement was published in the Boston newsletter; an announcement to seek for a buyer for an estate located in Osyter Bay, Long Island. (Advertising Age, 2005) Eversince then, advertising has bloom tremendously over the decade and it can be seen as a never ending industry. Nowadays when we look at advertisements, there are not only the olden day’s types of advertisement where there was only the print advertisement; various types of advertisements are available now. Advertisements now are more lively compared to the olden days whereby we can see advertisement on television, radio, electronic banner and also on the internet. Advertising is defined as a paid form of non personal communication whereby the sponsor is identified. (Wikipedia) From the definition of advertising, we know that advertisement is paid for by a company who wants to advertise through a medium which does not belong personally by someone.
Advertising has emerged since the early 17th century. At the early stage advertising was used for the mean of sending information out. Example that we can take is, the first advertisement in the Boston Newsletter which was used to send out information about an estate for sale. As the time goes by, we can see the tremendous evolution of the advertising industry. Today, the function of the advertising is not only to send out information; it also served the function to educate the audience and also to
entertain them. Besides that, companies make use of advertising to build a brand image of their company and the brand. Furthermore advertisements are used to boost the sales of a company. As we can see now, advertising are interactive whereby it gets the audience to response and then give feedback about the advertisement. By these, the company will know whether their advertisements are good or bad.
There are different types of advertising which are divided into 3 types which are known as above the line (ATL) advertising, below the line advertising and also through the line advertising. Above the line advertising is a type of advertising which uses the mass media to promote a brand. The mass media includes television, radio, web, billboard, newspaper, magazine and banner. Below the line (BTL) advertising is a technique whereby it uses a less conventional method to promote a brand. The media under the below the line advertising consist of direct mail, email, flyer and brochure. When we compare between the above the line advertising and the below the line advertising, the above the line advertising is more effective in executing the ideas of the advertising. Lastly the combination of both the above the line advertising and below the line advertising is known as the through the line advertising. In this advertising strategy, we can see the appearance of two types of media; for example a company which advertises on television (Above the Line) about a contest whereby it tells the audience to get the contest forms (Below the Line) in order to participate in the contest. This is a type of advertisement which uses both the above the line and below the line advertising method.
Many advertising are seen everywhere and there are those advertising which promotes deceiving and misleading information about a product or service. Some may not only promote deceiving and misleading information but also might offend certain audiences. This type of advertising is considered as being unethical. If an advertisement is consider unethical means that it is bad. Once the audiences have a bad impression towards an advertisement, it is then considered as a failure. There are different types of unethical advertising which include puffery, subliminal, advertising controversial products, advertising to children, stereotyping and taste and advertising.
The first unethical advertising which is known as “puffery” is a type of unethical advertising which a company uses an exaggerated claim about the products or services that they sell. In a puffery advertisement the use of word such as the best, world’s number one, greatest, finest and freshest are very common. For example, an electrical company which states that its’ electric fan has the coolest air; an Italian restaurant which states that they serve the finest steak in town; a pastry store which states that they serve freshest bread in town. For the first scenario whereby an electric company states that its’ electric fan has the coolest air; we can argue this statement by asking the question how do you know that the electric fan has the coolest air? Is there any proof that the electric fan has the coolest air? Therefore the word coolest is basically being exaggerated whereby there is no proof to support the claim. The second scenario and the third scenario are also the same which both the restaurants state that they serve the finest and best food in town are basically exaggerated too as there are no proof to show that they are the serving the finest and best food in town. To identify an advertisement as puffery is from the use of exaggerated term such as best, finest, world’s number one, greatest and etc.
“Stereotype” is defined as a set of characteristics that are attributed to a group of people. These attributions can either be good or bad, such as men are good leaders; women are bad leaders. (Wikipedia). Stereotype can be formed when there is an obvious observable and constant characteristic that can easily be acknowledged. This is the reason why people of different races, ethnicities, nationalities, professions, social classes, religious, genders and ages are easily being stereotype. Stereotyped people in groups usually find it very distressing as they experience fear of being treated unfairly. This distressing feeling is known as “stereotyping threat” Stereotypes can be changed occasionally in three ways which are known as the “Bookkeeping model” whereby as we learn new incongruous information, we will adjust the stereotype in order to adapt to the new information. In this scenario we will usually need a lot of continual information for each change. Individual proof is taken as the exclusion that proves the rule; the “Conversion model” whereby we ignore the old stereotype and begin again. This way is often used when there is important disconfirming proof; the “Subtyping model” whereby new stereotype is created which is consider as a sub-classification of the existing stereotype, mainly when we can portray a limit around the sub-class. Example of a stereotype advertisement is a fragrance advertisement portraying a gay male holding a bottle of perfume; an advertisement showing an elderly couple only throughout the scene.
The next unethical advertising is known as “advertising controversial products.” This advertising basically advertises products which are considered a taboo. Products which are considered a taboo are for example, feminine products, condoms and undergarments. Other controversial products such as cigarette and alcohol are those products which are still not accepted by everyone. Gambling and prescription drugs are also considered as controversial products that are widely being advertised in other countries. In Malaysia we cannot find any advertisement for cigarette while we can only see alcohol advertisement in cinemas only. Tobacco advertisement has been banned since 1st January 1995 (Wikipedia) to reduce the amount of smokers but this did not help at all in reducing the amount. For alcohol advertisement, it has been controlled by the government whereby these advertisements can only be seen in the cinemas and magazines.
“Advertising to Children” is another type of unethical advertising whereby the advertisement targets the product to the children. This type of advertisement is considered unethical because the advertisement uses certain message to manipulate the mind of the children who do not have the buying power. The point of these type of advertisements is to influence the mind of the children as they are more easier to be influenced compared to others. A good example of advertising to children is advertisement by McDonald’s whereby they portray McDonald’s as an enjoying place to be where burgers and fries are served making the children think that it will be abnormal if they do not eat in McDonald’s. Eating out in McDonald’s is seen as a privilege to then children and children will tend to ask their parents to bring them there. Other than that, McDonald’s uses free toys in their advertisements for their “Happy Meal” to trick children into buying their products although the food served are not healthy.
“Taste and advertising” is a term which state that different advertisement offend different people. (Advertising & Society) Advertisements are normally targeted to certain group which may not be accepted by others. Issue such as nudity, vulgarity and violence are the main controversial issue which may be accepted by certain group but not all. Certain people may find these types of advertisement offensive and they will reject it. We take an example of an advertisement which portrays a semi nude lady lying on the beach promoting a product which certain people may accept it but certain people might also get offended by the advertisement. People who usually reject these types of advertisements are normally those who are very strong with their religion beliefs and those who believe sturdily in social ethics. Advertisement must captivate the audience in the first sight but if the advertisement gives a bad impression at the beginning or offends the audience, even if it is only a small amount, it is considered as a bad taste advertisement or a failure.
Lastly the “subliminal” advertisement is an unethical advertisement which it portrays messages, symbols or pictures that convey meaning that are sent below the threshold of normal perception or in another definition, it is an advertisement which has a signal or message embedded in another object which is designed to pass below the limits of perception or the subconscious of the human’s mind. (Wikipedia). An example of a subliminal advertisement can be an ad which is shown for a short moment and it is unclear. This kind of advertisement will make the audience try to recall what really the image was. This is when we say that the subliminal advertising plays with the subconscious of the consumer’s mind.
All unethical advertising mentioned above should be controlled and therefore the Federal Trade Commission or shortly known as the FTC was established by the congress in 1914 with the objective to prevent unfair methods of competition in commerce. (Advertising and Society). Their task is to identify and then eliminate advertisement that mislead and deceive the consumer. FTC is also responsible to control acts and practices that mislead businesses or consumers. If the FTC found that a company is giving deceiving and misleading information, they will issue stop order which is also known as the cease and desist orders against the company. By this it actually enables the FTC to control the growth of unethical advertising. According to FTC, deceiving advertisements are advertisements that include certain scenario such as misleading pricing whereby the price stated mislead the consumer. An example of the scenario can be a price of a product stated in a sale brochure is different compared to the actual price of the product being sold in the market; providing wrong information or criticisms of products by a competitor. For example, company A and B are engaged in a same business of selling clothes detergent. Company A gives out wrong information and criticisms about company B saying that the detergent sold by them are less powerful in cleaning off tough stain; giving out misleading or deceptive guarantees. For example, a company which gives out guarantees which does not state clearly which particular part of the product is
covered in the guarantee; stating an ambiguous statement whereby information stated by a company about a product is unclear or confusing as it can be understood in more than one way. The last deception scenario is the false testimonials whereby the company gives out wrong testimonial about their products in order to increase the sales. Other than the Federal Trade Commission, there is another commission which is known as the Federal Communications Commission or it is also called as the FCC. (Advertising and Society). This commission was established by Communications Act of 1934. (FCC Home).The function of this commission is to issue license to broadcasting station and they also have the right to revoke the license issued. Other than that, the Federal Communications Commission can also ban messages which include advertisements that are misleading and deceiving or it has bad taste.
To summarize the whole thesis, we start again from the history of advertising which started off as early in the 17th century. At the early stage, advertising only serve as a medium of information whereby it sends out information about what is going on. As the time passed, we can see how advertising evolved into a big industry whereby it has now become a necessity. Companies whether it is big or small uses advertisement to promote their products or services. Advertising has a lot of usage nowadays; whether it is to promote, educate or entertain the audiences. There are different types of advertising which ranges from above the line to below the line advertising and not forgetting the through the line advertising which is a combination of the above the line advertising and below the line advertising. Advertising can somehow be unethical whereby it transmit
messages that are misleading and deceiving. All together there are 6 types of unethical advertising which includes puffery, stereotyping, advertising controversial products, advertising to children, taste and advertising and subliminal advertising. All these advertisements have different way in misleading, deceiving and also offending the audiences. These advertisements are controlled by 2 commissions namely the Federal Trade Commission and also the Federal Communications Commission.
Unethical advertising has increased over the pass few years. It is normally used as a tool to manipulate or trick the audience mind by using misleading and deceiving information. Because of these, it should be controlled or perhaps it should be stopped so that people will not continue to be cheated by these types of advertisement which will only benefit the source but not the receiver. The Federal Trade Commission and also the Federal Communications Commission should play their role in ensuring that none of these unethical advertisements are approved for broadcasting. Other than that strictly rules should be implied when it comes to create advertisements so that no misleading, deceiving and even any messages that can offend the audiences in the advertisements are produced. By this we can ensure that the audiences only receive genuine information from the advertisements. They will be cleared of what they see and hear and there will be no wrong interpretation.
