The Effect of Unethical Practices in Advertising
CHAPTER ONE
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objectives of the study are;
- To ascertain the extent of effects unethical practice of advertising has caused.
- To ascertain whether advertising lack professional application
- To ascertain whether the media involved in promoting illegal advertising
- To ascertain whether advertisers neglect the ethics of advertising practice
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
When we study unethical advertisements and how they affect how consumers feel about the company’s brand and product, the most important to first study ethics in advertising. It is important to understand how consumers judge or understand advertisements so advertisers can approach the creation of an advertisement with an idea of how it will be received by the customer. Consumer’s judge advertisements based of three main principles of idealism, pragmatism, and relativism (Dean 2005). Idealism emphasizes universal statements of right and wrong; not the consequences of the actions or the function of time, place, or culture. In this case, most will view a concept in an advertisement as right or most will view the concept as wrong, there is not much of a gray area. Relativism, on the other hand, is not based on universal rules but is indeed based on the time, place, and culture of the audience who is viewing the advertisement. An advertisement in this case may be acceptable to one culture but extremely offensive in another based off of the beliefs and norms of the people in that culture. Pragmatism is based off of the belief that the advertisement results in the greatest good for the greatest number of people. It is valuable for companies to think of how individuals may arrive at an ethical judgment about an advertisement based off of these principles, but it also a good idea to have standards of ethics to evaluate advertisements as well. In today’s competitive market most advertisers and media recognize the importance of maintaining consumer trust and confidence which is very important to gain. The circle of self-regulation in advertising is widening day by day. Even the code of ethics drawn up by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has not had much impact. They do not provide solutions to every ethical dilemma As we all know advertisements are presented to large audience throughout the world through various means called advertising media. There is several types of media ranging from banner and balloons to online and mobile advertising internet advertising etc. Different types of messages may require different media (Kazmi, S.H.H. & Satish K. Batra, 2006). There is high degree of consensus among the respondents regarding the issues related to public policy about advertising. Majority of the respondents are in favor of a judicial regulatory body to enforce ethics in advertising. They are in favor of legal restrictions on sexually suggestive advertisements and advertisements targeting children. So much so that they also favor a legal limit on the amount of money a company can spend on advertising (Raghbir Singh & Sandeep, 2007) ( Anbarasan, N. A., 2012) has stated that majority of the respondents are having the habit of viewing television which is the most preferred electronic media for its advertisements due to high-level ethical values. (Chan and Cai, 2009) conducted a study to examine the cultivation effects of television advertising viewing on the perceived affluence in society and the materialistic value orientations among adolescents in urban and rural China. A survey of 646 adolescents aged between 11 and 17 was conducted in 2006.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to the effect of unethical practices in advertising
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information on the effect of unethical practices in advertising. 200 staffs of Vita foam plc, Aba, Abia state was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
DATA ANALYSIS
The data collected from the respondents were analyzed in tabular form with simple percentage for easy understanding.
A total of 133(one hundred and thirty three) questionnaires were distributed and 133 questionnaires were returned.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the effect of unethical practices in adverting
In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of unethical practices in adverting
Summary
This study was on the effect of unethical practices in adverting. Four objectives were raised which included: To ascertain the extent of effects unethical practice of advertising has caused, to ascertain whether advertising lack professional application, to ascertain whether the media involved in promoting illegal advertising, to ascertain whether advertisers neglect the ethics of advertising practice. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of vita foam plc, Aba. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made up of HRMs, managers, marketers and junior staff were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
Advertising Industry has been facing a lot of criticism in the recent times as the advertising practices have not always been ethical. In today’s competitive market, due to free allowances, the advertisers are sometimes following the unethical practices to fight the competition. The ethical aspect of Indian advertisement is extremely important for restoration of our Nigerian culture and heritage. Nigerian culture is getting diluted by the western culture which influences our country to a great extent. To save our culture, norms and ethics regulations of such unethical advertisements are extremely essential. But today the numbers of unethical and obscene advertisements are increasing in numbers instead of decreasing. This clearly shows that implementation of the laws controlling advertisement is not properly done. The lacks of implementation of the laws are leading to more and more unethical and obscene advertisements
Recommendation
The lacks of implementation of the laws are leading to more and more unethical and obscene advertisements. Hence, it is an urgent need for proper implementation of the laws in our country
REFERENCES
- Anastasia. (2015) Accessible: https://www.cleverism.com/social-responsibility-ethics-marketing, 06 February 2015.
- Arnold, C. (2010). Ethical Marketing and the New Consumer. 1th ed. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
- Bishop, J. D. (2000). Is Self-identity Image Advertising Ethical?- Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 10, Issue 2, 371-398
- Brenkert, G. G. (2008). Marketing Ethics. 1th ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing
- Bush, A. J., Bush, V. D. (1994). The Narrative Paradigm as a Perspective for Improving Ethical Evaluations of Advertisements. – Journal of Advertising, Vol. 23, Issue 3, 31-41
- Christians, G. C., Fackler, M., Richardson, K. B., Kreshel, P. J., Woods, R. H. Jr. (2012). Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning. 9th ed. New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
- Crane, A., Matten, D. (2010). Business Ethics: Managing Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability in the Age of Globalization. 3th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.
