Tags
Advertising, Categoralism, Consequentialism, Ethics, Marketing, McDonald's, Play 60, Virtue Ethics
The controversy that I have written about is the ethical issue in advertising to children. This has been an issue that has relentlessly been fought over as children know no better than to fall into the marketing scheme big business, thus making big business look as I they are preying upon children and their parents wallets. Advertising to children is a problem as it reinforces negative stereotypes of other people to children, it promotes poor eating habits and unhealthy foods, and it teaches negative values and morals. Looking at all of these bad consequences of advertising to children I will be viewing the issue through the lenses of a Consequentialist, a Categoricalist, and a Virtue Ethicist.
A consequentialist view that supports advertising to children would say that at the end of the day it is not the children that are being sold to it is the parents who are the actual buyers. The parents are the ones who are not able to uphold their authority as a parent and say no to their children, thus letting the big bad marketer off the hook for manipulating children through marketing. A Consequentialist might argue that the economic gain from the advertisements would be enough to make it ethical. On the other hand it would not be farfetched to argue that the negatives of the advertising may deem the advertising tactic very unethical.
A Consequentialist view against the use of advertising to children would argue that the negative aspects of it do not exceed the financial gain. The manipulation used to persuade children is not ethical as they are selling unhealthy or opinionated material to children who know no better. A consequentialist might argue that depending on the content advertising to kids may not be all that bad, specifically the Play 60 campaign by the NFL and the United Way. The Play 60 advertising campaign urges children to get out and be active getting at least 60 minutes of active play per day, hence Play “60”. I would lean towards the view that advertising the children is unethical when it is being used improperly, Play 60 is an awesome example of advertising to children that makes a difference for the good of our youth.
(Hines Ward accompanied by two fellow professional football players participate in Play 60. Players like these travel the United States promoting an active and healthy life style to kids through the sports and other physical activities.Photo by-Daniel Kaplan-)
A categoralist would support advertising to children as well but for reasons that are more black and white. The simple right that children have the right to receive messages and the most apparent, the right to free speech. The argument can always be made that advertising the children is really a channel to get to the parents who have the disposable income to pay for these items. With that being said than the right to free speech and the right that companies have to market their products would be enough to convince a categoralist that advertising to children is ethical and progressive in the economy. This lack of real consequence to businesses is similar to a professional or virtue ethicist who may argue that the reputation of a company is enough for them to act ethically and professionally.
A virtue ethicist’ outlook on advertising to children would be one which puts the responsibility to not be manipulative on the business through the image they portray. This outlook is much like my own as I do not think that we should control how children are advertised to but let the consequences of their manipulative behavior affect their bottom line. McDonalds is a great example of a business that dug their own hole through directly marketing fast food to kids. The ad below is one that McDonalds put out which is very obviously targeting children to buy their food for the cool toy watch that comes with the happy meal, McDonalds came under fire for this ad as their food has been proven to be very unhealthy and due to this a virtue ethicists would be pleased in the fact that their reputation took a hit due to this manipulative behavior. McDonalds has been under siege due to their happy meals for a long time and in my opinion if the quality of their food doesn’t change the happy meal will slowly dissolve away.
(Media literacies)
This concept of companies “digging their own grave” by being put under the spotlight for manipulative behavior is one I believe in. I believe that like a consequentialist view of the parents having some fault as they should be able to say no to their children even though the ads are directly marketed to their kids. The categoricalist view is very black and white and not exactly something that has too many supporting facts other than the fact that no laws are being broken, but with that being said the right to free speech argument is a difficult argument. Though I do agree with these views I would say that I see advertising children more like a professional virtue ethicists. The view that the public and the companies own reputation would be enough to stop manipulative marketing towards kids. Of course there should be some sort of guidelines towards the severity of the advertising but for the most part I believe that the responsibility of the parents and the pending reputation of the business should be enough to make sure that business are not being manipulative and putting children in harm’s way.
Work cited
“NFL Goes Deep with Youth Health and Fitness.” – SportsBusiness Daily. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2013.
“MDIA1001 – Media Literacies.” MDIA1001 Media Literacies RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2013.
French, Joanna. Advertising to Children. Presentation. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.