Marketing Communications

UNETHICAL USE OF MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS INSTRUMENTS 571

Th reat-based ads, commonly known as ‘fear appeals’, are oft en used in social marketing

campaigns (traffi c safety, AIDS campaigns, etc.). However, Hastings et al. state that any deliber-

ate fostering of anxiety by marketing communications has ethical implications. Indeed, like

any other ad that exerts emotional pressure, fear appeals can be regarded as manipulative.

Further, fear appeals expose a person against his or her will to harmful or seriously off ensive

images. Any fear appeal that is not psychologically comfortable may be considered unethical.

Moreover, fear may induce reactance, defensive avoidance and fatalism. Research has also

shown that fear appeals may lead to maladaptive social responses, for instance heightened

anxiety among those most at risk and complacency among those not directly targeted. Th is

may lead to fear control (i.e. ignoring or avoiding the message to avoid fear) instead of danger

control (following the advice in the message). Finally, fear appeals may lead to increased

social inequity between those who respond to fear campaigns and those who do not.

Research has shown that the latter are more oft en better off than the former.^105 On the other

hand, the use of strong fear appeals may not be perceived as unethical if consumers feel

they can use the recommended product or adopt the recommended behaviour to eff ectively

eliminate the threat posed by the message (teleological view). Research shows that perceived

effi cacy to cope with the threat leads to an increase in perceived ethicality and to a better

attitude towards the message and the product.^106

Another ethically charged practice is subliminal or supraliminal advertising. Subliminal

messages are received subconsciously, below a person’s perceptual threshold, while supra-

liminal messages are above the noticeable perceptual threshold, but consumers are oft en

unaware of their presence. An example would be subliminally or supraliminally inserting the

word ‘sex’ or a naked person into an advertising message in an attempt to infl uence a person

to buy a product. Although there is little or no proof that such messages work, they are oft en

considered to be unethical. Subliminal and supraliminal presentations of stimuli are untruth-

ful by omission: either people cannot observe what you are doing, or they can observe but

they do not know what the persuasion process is.^107

In general, advertising is expected not to be deceptive or misleading, exploit fear or

superstition, further violence or discrimination, plagiarise, misuse quotations, statistics or

research, or omit material facts (for instance, the health side eff ects of medication). A special

category of potentially misleading advertising is puffery , the use of hyperbole or exaggeration

of attribute and benefi t claims to promote a brand. Calling a product ‘the best’ is hard to

prove, but rarely challenged. Puff ery is sometimes called ‘soft -core deception’. On the other

hand, puff ery, just like metaphors, may be seen as a legitimate creative technique that is not

misleading because any ‘reasonable’ consumer knows what is going on.

Attas explored the ethical quality of deceptive advertising. He claims that ‘deceptive’ is the

wrong term. First of all, if no harmful behaviour follows from an ad, nothing blameworthy has

There is widespread criticism that kids are targeted in relentless ways by food and drinks companies.^98 Therefore,

food advertising to children may be contributing to the increase in childhood obesity by promoting unhealthy foods

(especially sugary cereals, sweets, fast food restaurants). In many countries obesity is a serious and increasing

health problem. It is estimated that obesity accounts for $40 billion of treatment costs a year.^99 However, obesity

is a multifactor phenomenon. A sedentary lifestyle and lack of physical activity (the ‘couch potato’ effect), family

eating habits and attitudes towards (fat) food, genetic predisposition, peer pressure, quality of life, in-school food

service, nearby retail outlets, socio-economic status, TV viewing and advertising have all been suggested to be

determining factors of obesity.^100 The empirical evidence for the link between obesity and TV viewing and advertis-

ing is mixed at best.^101 Eagle et al. 102 state that TV viewing is correlated with obesity only to the extent that viewing

may replace more active pastimes. Vandewater et al. 103 in their study of 2831 children aged 1–12 concluded that TV

viewing had no effect on obesity (measured as Body Mass Index), and other studies also found only a weak link

between TV viewing and obesity.^104 However, food advertising on TV has been partially held responsible for what

has been called the ‘obesity epidemic’.

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