Ethical Issues in Advertising

Running head: ETHICAL ISSUES IN ADVERTIZING
ETHICAL ISSUES IN ADVERTIZING
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1ETHICAL ISSUES IN ADVERTIZING
a. Should Alcohol Companies Advertise Their Products In Public Place?
b. Background
The advertizing and media industry often operates within a strict regulation and is
controlled by the Corporation and Government (Jernigan and Rushman 2014). The advertisers
have to be careful about its ethical consideration all the times. It is highly unethical to advertize
harmful products such as alcohol by using psychological tact’s to increase the demand of the
products. The companies should not advertize harmful products like alcohol in public places.
Advertisement and promotion of such harmful products and beverages creates a negative impact
on the lifestyles of young people (Ross, Sparks and Jernigan 2016). The major problem that
arises is the increase in the number of consumers and most of them are youth.
High exposure of alcohol advertisement in the public often contributes to the drinking
among youth. The primary problem of increase in alcohol causes a drastic increase among the
youth, adolescents and young adults and creates a negative impact on their health. Most of the
drinkers in the current scenario are younger than 21 years of age and consumes around 20% of
the entire drink (Kubacki et al. 2015). This has increased the number of fatal car accidents that is
mainly caused due to drinking. Due to advertisement and promotion the situation is worsening as
the youth nowadays drink more on an average then they used to do it in the past. It is highly
significant for the companies to advertize such products that are ethical in issue as it would
positively influence the environment.

2ETHICAL ISSUES IN ADVERTIZING
c. Facts relevant to the analysis of the ethical issue:
 Exposure to advertisements related to alcohol has distal and immediate effects on the
consumption of alcohol (Moreno and Whitehill 2014).
 Alcohol advertisement creates a positive influence on increasing the rate of consumption
of alcohol. Younger age group showed increase in the drinking pattern over time (Pacula
et al. 2014).
 As per World Health Organization (WHO), major health related problem is caused due to
the consumption of alcohol globally (Jernigan and Rushman 2014).
 Alcohol advertisements provoke thoughts to the mind of the viewers and contribute their
decisions to start drinking. Advertisement of alcohol affects the mentality of young
people and thus creating a negative impact on the life of the young people (Martino et al.
2016).
 Alcohol companies spend more than $2 billion dollars to promote alcohol and advertizing
it all over the United States (Park and Morton 2015).
 High school students tend to spend 18,000 hours in front of social media and television.
They watch more than 2000 alcohol advertisement during this period each year (Kubacki
et al. 2015).
d. Assumptions:
 Alcohol advertisement that generates displeasure among the people reduces the
consumption of alcohol.
 Banning or restricting the marketing of alcohol is assumed to be a cost effective strategy
to decrease the consumption of alcohol intake by majority of population.