Ethics and Advertising

In a special issue of the Journal of Business Ethics in 2003, Richard Beltramini of Wayne State University introduced the group of articles by asking whether advertising ethics was an oxymoron. Citing the numerous complaints regularly leveled against advertising, Beltramini argues that it draws so much attention precisely because it is “the most visible business tool today, exposing the public to thousands of messages each day.”1 He rightly suggests that the emergence of new technology and delivery methods have posed new ethical problems that will naturally require a reassessment of the methods used to evaluate ethicality in the past. He issues a call for action for practitioners to “adhere to potentially even higher standards of ethical conduct than other business functions.”