ABSTRACT
Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong address social criticism of marketing and advertising. Anthropology developed initially as a discipline to record and comprehend non-Western cultures, often through direct contact. This legacy has been discussed and criticized within the field of anthropology, particularly in terms of the ethics of unacknowledged colonialist agendas that often accompanied ethnographies. P. Sunderland and R. Denny address ethics in their own marketing research enterprise, the Practica Group, when they discuss the use of photographs and representation in Cuba, and wonder if they are complicit in the exploitation of their respondents. Changing views toward advertising and marketing trace to an evolution in ways of conceptualizing consumer autonomy and agency. US consumers have free choice; they can accept or reject marketing messages based upon their evaluation of the promises made. Ethics are ultimately defined and negotiated in public discourse as well as by individual decision making.
