Advertising with Ethical Issues

Ethics are defined as “moral principles and values that govern the actions and decisions of an individual or group” (Belch, pg. 731). Ethics vary throughout society based demographics and other personal opinions. With this in mind it is difficult for a company to make ads that won’t offend anyone, but it is important for companies to consider ethics in general when compiling a marketing and advertising campaign. The majority of the time companies do keep in mind the ethical values of their target audience but sometimes ads emerge that are ethically questionable.

            Burger King released an advertisement in Singapore, a typically more straight-laced city, for their seven-inch cheeseburger.  The advertisement included the caption, “It’ll Blow Your Mind Away” as well as a photo of a woman with her mouth open next to the burger. In this case the advertisers employed the case of shock advertising, where they “use nudity, sexual suggestiveness, or other startling images to get a consumers’ attention” (Belch, Pg. 736). This ad included a sexual suggestiveness that alludes to oral sex. This use of sexual appeals only allows the ad to appeal to a portion of a population, while offending the majority who see it.

            Another company that has repeatedly come across at ethically questionable is Abercrombie and Fitch. After the CEO’s comments regarding how their stores are meant for the “pretty and popular” crowd and not for those who are overweight, the company received more backlash. Even before this the advertisements and Abercrombie displayed portrayed a level of unethicality. Similar to the Burger King ad, Abercrombie utilizes a form of sexual appeals through shock advertising, although at this point many are no longer shocked by the sexual nature associated with their ads, it still presents ethically questionable issues.

Additionally Ikea has also presented several advertisements that include ethically questionable content. One of these ads was featured in Saudi Arabia, where Ikea removed the women from the ads. While this is more typical to Saudi Arabia, it has caused problems with others across the globe. While often ethics issues involving women bases from people perceiving the ads as portraying women as decorative objects and too occupied with beauty and household duties, this Ikea ad just removed women from the picture entirely (Belch, pg. 744). The problems that Ikea has faced with ethical issues are often based on social and cultural differences that evolve from an international company.

Pretesting Advertisements

The cost of advertising can be incredibly expensive. In the U.S. in 2009 the top three advertisers alone spent more than $11 billion on advertising in promotion (Belch, 2001, pg. 603). When spending that much money simply to advertise products or services it is important to make sure that they are effective and are accurately portraying the desired message and reaching the desired audiences. It’s important to conduct marketing research to somewhat accomplish this and to figure out what you believe the desired audience would enjoy and react to, but the original, primary research can only tell advertisers so much.

There are several different types of pretests that advertisers can use based on when in the process they pretest and what they are testing. One example is concept testing. This is done early in the campaign development process to determine the consumer’s reactions to a potential ad and to evaluate alternatives (Belch, pg. 611). The material tested is often just a rough sketch or headline and positioning statement as well as color schemes. Another type of pretesting is rough art, copy, and commercial testing. These include comprehension and reaction tests, which determine if the advertisement portrays the intended meaning, and consumer juries, where consumers rate different layouts or copy versions (Belch, pg. 613). As well as pretesting while developing the advertisement, marketers also pretest the finished ads before putting them into circulation with readability tests, portfolio tests, and on-air tests.

            Once an advertisement has been developed marketers typically want to pretest the ads. Pretesting is done before the campaign is put into place and may occur any time during idea generation to testing the final version (Belch, pg. 609).

There are several reasons for marketers to pretest ads in order to measure the effectiveness. Pretesting can help avoid costly mistakes and allow for the evaluation of alternative strategies to determine what one may work best. Additionally it can increase advertising efficiency. Ultimately by conducting a pretest it can identify the best ads, get rid of the worst, and enhance good ideas.

            Even though there are many advantages to pretesting, there are marketers who do not employ this strategy for several reasons. Reasons that pretesting is not used include the cost, that the storyboard or mock-up may not accurately portray the final product, and time delays (Belch, pg. 610). Though it costs money to conduct these pretests, it can ultimately save money and time by keeping an ineffective or harmful advertisement out of circulation.