The fifth annual Spuler Ethics Symposium speakers Ivonne Montes de Oca, John DeLa Cruz, Timothy Hendrick and Michael Llewellyn- Williams gave their opinions and expertise on advertising ethics on April 16.
The panel opened the discussion by each individual making an opening statement on where they stand with advertising ethics.
“Ethics and advertising is not a black and white issue, its about varied shades of grey,” said John DeLa Cruz, assistant professor of advertising at SJSU.
Many speakers agreed with the general idea that there are many layers of ethics in advertising.
“My view an ad cant be unethical. An ad is a tool,” said Dr. Michael Llewellyn-Williams, founder and principal of BrandMechanics Inc. “I think maybe the clients behind that ad may have shown unethical things.”
I found this panel discussion very interesting as each speaker had a different background in advertising. For the major of the questions, they agreed with each other in what they considered unethical or appropriate but lacking professional taste.
Having example videos of advertising that was taking down and allowing the panel to address some questions was educational. One point made was perhaps sex no longer really sells in the industry, and sometimes implies desperate for attention of the product. Another point made with the commercial of Jack in the box was –– although poor in taste ––some ads are allowed because they are directed towards a certain audience.
Although I would normally attend these type of events, having heard this panel intrigued me enough to push me to possible attend future discussions.
Here are two sections of the discussion. The first is a video of an example commercial that Jack in the Box broadcasted. The second video is the panel's response
No comments:
Post a Comment