Social responsibility is a broad concept that includes the ecological, social, political and the overall health and wellbeing of the audiences. In the present day, there are many advertisements which are untrue. There are advertisements, showing new flats and multistoried buildings that are well furnished and offers a very high and lavish lifestyle to the people. However, people might get much attracted towards this and might forget about conserving the nature. These advertisements might instigate them to undertake huge construction projects just to afford a high lavish lifestyle and start on any property estate business. Those advertisements, however, will never show the harmful effects that are created on the environment due to such large-scale construction. There can be chances of air water or soil pollution. Apart from this, this can create a desire among people to somehow afford that excessive high standard of living (Grayson and Hodges 2017). The ethical question chosen here is the social responsibly of the media and advertisement. In other words, it questions the authenticity and the truthfulness within the advertisements. It also raises questions like how much beneficial are these ad campaigns for the audiences? Do they have any dangers? What are they and how can they be mitigated?
Children are innocent and are easily attracted towards the flowery ways in which the advertisements talk about different products like that of food products (Reichert and Lambiase 2014). There are many fast food advertisements that come up on the television showing the best and the new fast foods like burgers, chips, chocolates and many other such products. Children do not really have the quality of seeing through these flowery and colorful ads or even understanding if these products will be good or bad for their health. The consumption of the fast foods has increased a lot and it causes health problems like obesity (Percy and Elliott 2016).
The ad agencies know that the children and the teenagers are exposed to social media like the facebook, twitter and even simple net browsing. So, the advertising agencies use these social media platforms to showcase many of their products like discounts on pizza from dominos, pizza huts. Apart from this they also set many campaigns directly in the schools and in return give huge money to the school authorities. Thus, this brings in many digressions for the children and they are diverted from their studies. They create unnecessary pressure on their parents to get them the items that are shown in the advertisements (Radesky et al. 2015).
Another advertisement is that of the beauty products. Too much emphasis is given to the skin tone, the body shape, the hairs and many other such body parts. It does not only commodifies women but also creates an inferiority complex among girls. They try to copy the beautiful models and give up eating in order to get a zero figure or a slim body. They develop a dangerous disease like anorexia, weakness, bulimia.
Advertisements also cause a corruption in the minds of the children by adding a sexual undertone to all the items that are shown on television. Women are usually portrayed as sex objects. These ads ruin the way children should actually think. Too many advertisements of condoms another sex inducing objects often provoke the minds of the children and the youth. The teenagers might easily be able to obtain those materials and take some steps that can make them fall into great dangers (Tuncay and Coleman 2015).
Huge stunts are shown on the television, internet advertisement links and many games that are played by the children and teenager. The ads pretend that performing such stunts make people a hero and a star. As a result of this, many teenagers try imitating them and are subjected to huge danger.
The incidences of underage drinking and tobacco consumption are also increasing due to the excessive advertising. Children and particularly the teenagers are getting acquainted with these products very easily. They cannot skeptically look at the ill effects of these ads and start practicing the same in their real lives as they have seen on media.
The ad agencies must check and alter the quantity and the quality of the ads that they are telecasting. They must not telecast these ads on television or on social media so often. They must alter the content of the ad. The beauty products add must not have tags unlike the Nivea white is purity ad campaign. They must show that these beauty products do not add anything extra to the qualities that people naturally possess. All individuals are special, beautiful and unique in their own way and they do not need any mere cosmetics to define who they actually are.
It is also the duties of the parents of children and the young teenagers, to be frank with their wards and talk with them regarding these advertisements that are shown. Parents must also keep a check on the duration for which their children are using the social media platforms. Parents must also keep a constant follow up with the friend and the schools of their children and do not allow them to perform any dangerous life taking stunts.
The ethical act central to the social responsibility is to create utility by making people fairer, prettier and beautiful.
The negative impacts can be
So, it can be concluded that the ad agencies have to be very cautious about the content of their advertisements. For an instance, while showing the beauty products, they must not add any racial undertones to it. So that it does not hurt the sentiments of people. In this way, the customers will know that there is no compulsion on using those products others is no such rule that one has to follow. The advertisement houses must develop products that will suit the skin types of all the consumers so that all of them can get equal opportunities. So, all the consumers will have this feeling that none of them are being left out. The tagline of the beauty products must be “beauty for all” and not “white creates purity”. These will help in increasing the net utility. More customers will increase their faith in the brands of those products and will increase their purchases.
References
Bury, B., Tiggemann, M. and Slater, A., 2016. Disclaimer labels on fashion magazine advertisements: Impact on visual attention and relationship with body dissatisfaction. Body image, 16, pp.1-9.
Grayson, D. and Hodges, A., 2017. Corporate social opportunity!: Seven steps to make corporate social responsibility work for your business. Routledge.
Jernigan, D., Noel, J., Landon, J., Thornton, N. and Lobstein, T., 2017. Alcohol marketing and youth alcohol consumption: a systematic review of longitudinal studies published since 2008. Addiction, 112(S1), pp.7-20.
Percy, L. and Elliott, R.H., 2016. Strategic advertising management. Oxford University Press.
Radesky, J.S., Schumacher, J. and Zuckerman, B., 2015. Mobile and interactive media use by young children: the good, the bad, and the unknown. Pediatrics, 135(1), pp.1-3.
Reichert, T. and Lambiase, J. eds., 2014. Sex in advertising: Perspectives on the erotic appeal. Routledge.
Štumberger, N. and Golob, U., 2016. On the Discursive Construction of Corporate Social Responsibility in Advertising Agencies. Journal of business ethics, 137(3), pp.521-536.
Tuncay Zayer, L. and Coleman, C.A., 2015. Advertising professionals’ perceptions of the impact of gender portrayals on men and women: A question of ethics?. Journal of Advertising, 44(3), pp.1-12.
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