Advertising Can Be Hazardous To Your Health
How far will companies go to sell their products? All too often the answer is too far. Advertising is a marketing technique that both blatantly and subconsciously persuades consumers to purchase products. Companies exhibit a breech of ethics in their strategies to sell their products, being even more reprehensible when the marketing is targeted to children. Advertisers are not held accountable for the effects their marketing efforts have in the process of boosting sales. Social responsibility would be achieved as a result of strict laws and federal regulations reducing the hazardous consequences of advertising.
Why is it so easy for advertisers to cross the line of social responsibility? Because there is no line. There are no laws to govern advertising or repercussions to follow. There are self-regulatory guidelines that should be followed but no punishments result when they are not. There is no accountability for the lack of business or moral ethics. The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) is a council of the Better Business Bureau that has set forth guidelines regarding advertising geared to children. CARU reviews advertising directed toward children and offers advertisers the chance to voluntarily correct advertising that does not adhere to the self-regulatory guidelines. There is no punishment as a result of a morally incorrect advertisement. The public needs to depend on businesses to make socially responsible decisions regarding advertising.
Billions of dollars are spent annually for advertising. There are advertising departments of companies and advertising firms whose sole purpose is to develop campaigns that will sell products. Would this be done if advertising did not influence consumers? Of cour ...