PRE-CONFERENCE SESSION: ADVERTISING ETHICS: TEACHING, RESEARCH, AND CHALLENGES

Esther Thorson, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO Margaret Duffy, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
This program was sponsored by the Institute for Advertising Ethics, a partnership of the American Advertising Federation, and the Strategic Communication Faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism. We would like to thank especially Mr. Wally Snyder, Director of the Institute for Advertising Ethics, and Mr. David Bell of the Institutes Advisory Board for their intellectual and financial contributions to the preconference.

Overview
Persuasion in general and advertising in particular face important and diverse challenges, especially with the growing influence of digital formats, behavioral targeting, globalization, and a morass of legal and regulatory guidelines. This panel brought together experts in the academy and the profession to discuss these challenges.

Summary
The conference covered a wide range of topics focusing on the concept that advertising ethics and practices are crucially related to issues of trust. Further, it was suggested that organizations developing and implementing ethical practices are more likely to be successful in the long term, a contention that should be further tested. Ultimately, organizations and brands are judged by their performance, not their public pronouncements. All of the participants emphasized that in professional and academic realms, ethics must be thought of as a conversation and a process, not a set of rules applied to any situation. Practitioners, marketers, and students need a toolbox of concepts and ideas to help them develop real-world solutions in response to ethical dilemmas. In addition, future research should build on existing theoretical approaches but also broaden our understanding of consumer perceptions of ethical and unethical activities.

CHALLENGES TO ADVERTISING ETHICS IN THE DIGITAL REALM

Panel Chair: Wally Snyder, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO Lee Peeler, National Advertising Review Council, New York, NY Robert Burnside, Chief Learning Officer, Ketchum, Inc., New York, NY Sheryl Oliver, Howard University, Washington, D.C.
Panelists offered numerous examples of ethical issues related to news, and the blurring of news, advertising, and entertainment products. They stressed the need for transparency on the part of agencies and companies. Agencies such as Ketchum and others have developed training programs for employees. Advertising and marketing associations are pursuing various channels of self-regulation. Panelists expect ever-higher levels of scrutiny by regulators and suggest that there is considerable urgency for organizations

to put meaningful standards in place. Regulatory agencies include the FTC and the FCC, each of which has different priorities. Consumer interest groups are also playing a much larger role, especially with regard to privacy intrusion.

NEW ADVERTISING ETHICS RESEARCH AMERICAS SELF-REGULATORY PROGRAM FOR ONLINE BEHAVIORAL ADVERTISING: SUCCESS OR FAILURE?
Jef Richards, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
In the fall of 2010 a group of organizations that develop and direct advertisings self-regulation activities banded together to create a program that would help consumers recognize when information was being collected about their behavior on the Internet. The organizations included the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB). Thus far this two-year old effort has produced mixed results.

INVASIVE OR HELPFUL?: CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS OF BEHAVIORAL TARGETING

Heather Shoenberger, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO Mark Sableman, Thompson Colburn LLP, St Louis, MO Esther Thorson, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
This study asked student respondents to evaluate scenarios in which there was a tradeoff between getting advertising for products they were interested in and having to provide some personal information about themselves. The findings suggest that despite previous headlines, consumers do prefer targeted advertising, even if their online behavior is tracked to provide that targeting. The ethical issues surrounding privacy continue to be a central focus as advertisers, consumers, and regulators try to find the right balance.

INTRUSIVENESS IN ADVERTISING
Steve Edwards, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX
This session provided an overview of all the ways in which advertising can be intrusivefrom billboards interrupting a beautiful view to commercials interrupting a favorite program. Edwards and his colleagues have been involved in developing a scale to measure advertising intrusiveness. One of the best ways to reduce the experience of intrusiveness is to target advertising more tightly to the interests of consumers, although as noted in the prior paper, the tighter the targeting the more likelihood of abusing personal privacy.

INSPIRATION FOR ADVERTISING ETHICS: AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID BELL

David Bell, former CEO, Interpublic Group, and Current Member, Advisory Council, Institute for Advertising Ethics
This interactive discussion drew on Mr. Bells experience in his many roles in a major advertising agency, his decision-making processes, and the examples of others. The discussion highlighted that the practice of advertising ethics is an ill-structured problem in that there may be more than one right way to deal with dilemmas. Mr. Bell also emphasized the importance of telling stories about ethical decisionmaking in an emotionally compelling way.

TEACHING ADVERTISING ETHICS INTEGRATING ADVERTISING INTO ALL ADVERTISING CLASSES

Jan Slater, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL
To assure that ethics is an integral component of how college students think about advertising, Slater suggests that the topic should be infused throughout the advertising curriculum. There are ethical problems with creative, media planning, account management, and in advertising research. When the study of ethics is isolated into a single advertising ethics course students are less likely to internalize concepts and be able to apply ethical decision-making processes.

TEACHING ADVERTISING ETHICS WITH THE FUTURE PRACTITIONER IN MIND

Gregory Pabst, San Francisco University, San Francisco, CA David Koranda, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Media and advertising are strongly relationship-based businesses and students must understand how all roles in advertising can be affected by this. Media buyers may be offered improper incentives, for example. The creative process has many inherent potential ethical issues and the differing values of the client as well as other actors inside and outside the agency must be considered. Schools must provide students with realistic preparation for the potential conflicts in values and interests that inevitably arise.

ADVERTISING ETHICS IN BROADER CONTEXT ADVERTISING ETHICS AND MARKETING ETHICS

Richard Beltramini, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI

Beltramini reported on a study that was in press in the Journal of Business Ethics. Third in a series, the newest study, a survey of more than 2000 college students, showed the highest level of concern about ethics in the young people. Students worried that ethical concerns would damage their own financial status, would damage the economy, and would put them under future pressure to breach ethical boundaries. It is crucial to examine the ethical concerns of young business students because they are predictive of the level of honesty and integrity we will see in the next generation of advertising and marketing students.

UPDATE ON THE CURRENT STATE OF ADVERTISING ETHICS THEORY

Minette Drumwright, University of Texas, Austin, TX Patrick Murphy, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN
These authors have done extensive work interviewing advertising academics and business leaders about their advertising ethics. It is clear from these interviews that ethics remains a central issue, but the nature of the conflicts and problems is changing rapidly with the growth of digital forms of advertising and the increasing ability to target advertising. A continuing problem is that the companies that are involved in advertising have business and ownership linkages that more easily lead to conflicts of interest.

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