THE CURRENT STATE OF ADVERTISING ETHICS

Industry and Academic Perspectives

Minette E. Drumwright and Patrick E. Murphy

ABSTRACT: Given the dynamic change and radical transformation of the advertising industry, we interviewed industry
and academic leaders to seek their perspectives on the current state of advertising ethics. We also analyzed advertising
agency Web sites, reviewed advertising textbooks, and surveyed the academic literature. We distinguish the ethics of
the advertising message from the ethics of the advertising agency business. New and perplexing ethical issues related to
advertising messages have emerged with the advent and growth of new and nontraditional media. Because of the more
complex organizational structures of global communication agency networks, the temptations, risks, and rewards of
unethical behavior in the business of advertising are greater than ever. We recommend that both industry and academia
become more proactive, individually and in consultation with one another, in dealing with ethical problems and in set-
ting norms.

The advertising industry has been and continues to be an
industry in the midst of radical transformation. It has experi-
enced a host of organizational, geographical, and technological
changes. Privately owned agencies led by great creative talent
have given way to publicly owned holding companies with
multiple agency brands and a plethora of marketing services
that are led by businesspeople. Once primarily domestic in
focus, the industry has undergone globalization as agencies
have followed their clients to far-flung parts of the world.
The advent of new technology has enabled new media to ex-
plode. Traditional mass media advertising is augmented by
nontraditional approaches, such as product placement, viral
marketing, direct marketing, and virtual community market-
ing on the Web. Given these dynamic changes, practitioners
must confront the challenges of the new advertising world
daily, and scholars are addressing the implications of revolu-
tionary change. As such, many questions confront the field of
advertising. One question is not always as obvious as others,
but it is equally important. What is the state of advertising
ethics? To answer it, we wanted a perspective that elicited
the ideas of thought leaders, knowledgeable participants, and
observers of the advertising industry. As such, we conducted
in-depth interviews with leading practitioners and academ-
ics. We supplemented these data by reviewing advertising
agency Web sites, advertising textbooks, and the academic
literature. We begin with a review of the academic literature
and then describe the research methods before turning to our
findings.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ADVERTISING
ETHICS LITERATURE
Advertising ethics has been defined as “what is right or good
in the conduct of the advertising function. It is concerned
with questions of what ought to be done, not just with what
legally must be done” (Cunningham 1999, p. 500). Corpo-
rate social responsibility (CSR) is closely aligned with, and
at times overlaps, ethics. As such, our study deals with some
aspects of corporate social responsibility. CSR encompasses
“the obligations of the firm to society, or more specifically,
the firm’s stakeholders—those affected by corporate policies
and practices” (Smith 2003, p. 53). Berger, Cunningham, and
Drumwright (2007) reviewed definitions of CSR and identi-
fied three dimensions that demonstrate the interrelatedness of
CSR and ethics: (1) internal policies and processes that ensure
that a company conducts its operations in a responsible and
ethical manner, (2) external initiatives that contribute to and
improve the communities in which a company operates such

Minette E. Drumwright (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill) is an associate professor of advertising, Department
of Advertising, College of Communication, University of Texas at
Austin.
Patrick E. Murphy (Ph.D., University of Houston) is C. R. Smith
Co-Director of the Institute for Ethical Business Worldwide and a
professor of marketing, Mendoza College of Business, University
of Notre Dame.
The authors thank former Journal of Advertising editor Russell N.
Laczniack for giving them the idea for this paper and for encour-
aging them to undertake the project. They are indebted to their
informants for sharing their insights with them. They also thank
Mercedes Duchicela for her excellent research assistance, and Mary
C. Gentile, Russell N. Laczniack, H. W. Perry, Jr., William S. Smith,
and Patricia A. Stout for their helpful comments on earlier versions
of the manuscript.
Journal of Advertising, vol. 38, no. 1 (Spring 2009), pp. 83–107.
© 2009 American Academy of Advertising. All rights reserved.
ISSN 0091-3367 / 2009 $9.50 + 0.00.
DOI 10.2753/JOA0091-3367380106
84 The Journal of Advertising
as corporate philanthropy and employee volunteerism, and
(3) the impact of these initiatives on society.
Our purpose here is not to provide a comprehensive
literature review. We seek simply to characterize trends
through the decades. For in-depth reviews of the research on
advertising ethics, see The Handbook of Advertising (Tellis and
Ambler 2007) and its chapters on advertising ethics (Drum-
wright 2007); advertising to vulnerable segments (Bonifield
and Cole 2007); advertising’s performance in a market system
(Wilkie and Moore 2007); and advertising, consumption, and
welfare (O’Guinn 2007).
The subject of ethics in advertising has a long history, and
many of the same ethical concerns and criticisms of advertising
have persisted through many decades and into the twenty-
first century. More than 55 years ago, F. P. Bishop, formerly
a member of Parliament and editor of The Times of London,
published one of the first books on advertising ethics where
he chronicled several “moral indictments” of advertising:
It stimulates unworthy desires, misleads the consumer, and
encourages “consumptionism.” This 11-chapter book titled
The Ethics of Advertising (1949) examined many of the issues
that some believe still plague advertisers and agencies, and
his introduction addresses what many would consider a major
question currently facing advertising:
Advertising has come to occupy a key position in the great
argument of today—the argument about the right balance
between social control and individual liberty. Hitherto the
effect of its use has unquestionably been to promote individual
liberty, at the expense, some would say, of good order and
social discipline. (p. 13)
Another book by two journalists during that era dealt with
ethics in business (Childs and Cater 1954) and spoke directly
to advertising with the following:
The advertiser must accept some responsibility for the confu-
sion of values that is a symptom of our times of troubles. Words
such as character, faith, belief, integrity, are used to commend
the quality of beer and pills. If you buy a certain car you are
exalted, exultant, magnificently at ease. In some instances the
advertising mind is so dogmatic that any criticism brings a
sharp challenge as though it were heretical even to question.
About 45 years ago, Thomas Garrett, S.J. (1961), a philoso-
phy professor and priest, examined several ethical problems of
“modern American advertising,” including economic growth,
persuasion, consumption, and potential monopoly power.
Garrett lauded Bishop’s work as “an excellent book filled with
good sense and balanced judgment,” but noted its limitation in
that Bishop is “not an ethician and so avoids coming to grips
with what we may call the ultimates” (p. 6). Garrett’s book
was both scholarly (a 25-page bibliography and footnotes on
virtually every page) and wide ranging, and it made the fol-
lowing timeless observation: “Persuasive advertising, however,
poses a real problem since some of the persuasive techniques used
are intended to by-pass the intellect and reduce rationality, and
may, if successful, lead to improvident actions” (p. 173; emphasis
in original). Garrett concluded the book with a checklist of
questions for advertisers. These 13 questions are applicable
today and have been reprinted recently (Murphy et al. 2005).
His focus on both intent and technique represents critical is-
sues in the ongoing evaluation of marketing and advertising
(Laczniak and Murphy 2006).
Around 35 years ago, Stephen Greyser (1972) outlined in
a Harvard Business Review article various attacks and coun-
terattacks on advertising, such as truthfulness, morality, and
exaggeration. Shortly thereafter, Wright and Mertes (1974)
edited an extensive anthology on advertising’s role in society
and devoted one section of eight articles to ethical views toward
the subject. Among the featured authors were Wroe Alderson,
Theodore Levitt, and Garrett.
More than 20 years ago, a debate about the merits of adver-
tising took place in the Journal of Marketing. Richard Pollay
(1986) wrote an influential article recounting the positions
of humanities and social science scholars on advertising’s
unintended social and cultural consequences. He concluded:
“These ideas also deserve consideration because of their sober-
ing and substantial nature. Taken as a whole, they constitute
a major indictment of advertising” (p. 31). Pollay’s critique
spawned a comment by Morris Holbrook (1987), who defended
advertising as pluralistic not monolithic, aimed at segments
and not the mass market, reflecting pop not high culture,
and mirroring not manipulating values. Pollay’s rejoinder
(1987) provided a point-by-point commentary on Holbrook’s
arguments, but more significantly, it focused on values. He
argued that advertising communicates values and increases
the saliency of certain values. He observed:
Of all the aspects of advertising that might be studied, values
have the most profound implications and are the most mean-
ingful to the larger academic community and the community
at large. (Pollay 1987, p. 107)
Much of the literature through the mid 1980s examined
ethics in advertising largely through commentary and philo-
sophical debate and from a “macro” perspective of advertising’s
effects on society rather than at the “micro” level of the firm
and the practitioners working in it (Hunt and Chonko 1987).
Drumwright (1993) characterized this work as pertaining to
one of two discourses: (1) a legal discourse among lawyers
and regulators that focuses largely on the rights of advertisers
and on what they can and cannot do vis-à-vis deception and
fraud; and (2) a moral discourse primarily among philosophers,
social critics, and ethicists that raises broad and far-reaching
questions related to advertising’s societal effects.
From the 1980s through the present, two empirical streams
of research on advertising ethics have developed. The larger

of the two streams has focused on understanding consumers’
perceptions of potentially objectionable advertising—for
example, ads with persuasive appeals, ads with idealized im-
agery, ads for dangerous products, and ads targeting children
(see, e.g., Gulas and McKeage 2000; LaTour and Henthorne
1994; Tinkham and Waver-Larisay 1994; Treise et al. 1994).
Hyman, Tansley, and Clark (1994) provided an overview of
this work in a Journal of Advertising special issue on advertising
ethics (vol. 23, September). The smaller research stream has
focused on examining the views of advertising practitioners
largely through scenario analysis (e.g., Davis 1994; James,
Pratt, and Smith 1994; Moon and Franke 2000) and mail
surveys (e.g., Chen and Liu 1998; Hunt and Chonko 1987;
Rotzoll and Christians 1980). Much of this work has been
descriptive as opposed to normative, as has been the case for
research in marketing ethics more generally (Dunfee, Smith,
and Ross 1999).
Debate concerning the nature and effects of advertising that
characterized the early literature has continued in more recent
years. One perspective was offered by Kirkpatrick (1986), who
argued that the charges against advertising of manipulative
deception, persuasive coercion, and tasteless offensiveness re-
sulted from a hostility toward capitalism and egoism. He drew
on Ayn Rand’s theory of rational egoism as a system of ethical
principles that can provide the best understanding and guid-
ance in business decisions (Kirkpatrick 1992, 2007). Approxi-
mately 10 years ago, the Catholic Church’s Pontifical Council
for Social Communications published a short treatise—Ethics
in Advertising (1997). This 35-page monograph challenged ad-
vertising to follow three major principles: truthfulness, human
dignity, and social responsibility. Several papers examining this
document were published in the Fall 1998 issue of Journal of
Public Policy and Marketing. While the impact of this work
may not have been a sustained one, it did make the point that
advertising is not just a concern in the secular world.
In the early years of this decade, advertising ethics expanded
to concerns about new media such as the Internet. Advertising
Age columnist Bob Garfield (2003), who billed himself as
advertising’s leading critic, wrote an irreverent book in which
he coined such words as “advertrocities” and “shockvertising.”
While his message was much broader than ethics, he did offer
observations on campaigns and practices that he considered
unethical, such as Benetton’s long-standing social issues
campaign, political advertising, and sexism. Garfield’s major
indictment of advertising was “dishonesty” (p. 145).
Drumwright and Murphy (2004) turned attention toward
advertising professionals and agencies. They conducted in-
depth interviews with advertising practitioners within the
context of the ad agency. The findings indicated that many
agency personnel suffer from what they termed “moral myo-
pia,” a distortion of moral vision that prevents moral issues
from coming clearly into focus, or “moral muteness,” mean-
Spring 2009 85
ing that they rarely talk about ethical issues. Encouragingly,
a small minority of advertising practitioners was morally
sensitive and exhibited “moral imagination”—the ability to
envision moral alternatives that others do not. An earlier work
(Krueger 1998) contrasted the cultures of two advertising
agencies using in-depth interviews and found one agency’s
philosophy of advertising to be strongly shaped by its CEO’s
personal moral (including religious) convictions.
A recent book-length publication on advertising ethics
was written by two Australian academics (Spence and Van
Heereken 2005). They examined several of the continuing con-
cerns of advertising such as truth in advertising, stereotyping,
and targeted advertising. They concluded with a cautionary
note that “the pervasiveness and unrestricted proliferation of
advertising that threatens to engulf all aspects of our private
and public domains remains the biggest ethical problem in
advertising” (p. 122).
Despite attention to issues of advertising ethics through the
decades, it would be a mistake to assume that advertising eth-
ics has received coverage commensurate with its importance.
While advertising ethics has been recognized for some time as
a mainstream topic (Hyman, Tansley, and Clark 1994), research
is thin and inconclusive in many important areas.
METHOD
Multiple methods were employed to examine the status of ad-
vertising ethics in industry and academia, including interviews
with practitioners; interviews with chairs and relevant faculty
of leading advertising departments; analysis of ethics content
in the largest agencies’ Web sites; and examination of advertis-
ing textbook coverage of ethical, legal, and social issues.
We believed that in-depth interviews of thought leaders
would offer unique insights into the status of advertising today.
Eighteen industry and academic leaders were interviewed using
a semistructured interviewing approach with broad questions
that enabled the informants to determine what focus was
important. All informants were promised anonymity and con-
fidentiality for themselves and their organizations to mitigate
biases related to social desirability and posturing.
Nine leading advertising practitioners were interviewed by
telephone or in person to ascertain how they view the state of
the field of advertising ethics. Seven of the nine were senior
executives in advertising agencies that are ranked among the
20 largest agencies in annual worldwide billings (Advertis-
ing Age 2006), and two were from leading U.S. industry
organizations who had previously worked in advertising or
marketing communication. The senior executives in agencies
held positions of chairman and/or CEO of a global agency
or president or COO of a major division of a global agency
(e.g., the U.S. division). We probed regarding three general
topic areas: (1) the advertising ethics issues that they see as
86 The Journal of Advertising
important now and in the future, (2) how one can create an
agency that supports ethical decision making, and (3) research
that academics could conduct that would advance the field of
advertising ethics. The interviews lasted between 30 minutes
and an hour and were audio recorded. In addition to the inter-
views, some informants provided ethics-related materials such
as transcripts of speeches or employee communications created
by their agencies. These data sources enriched the database and
enabled us to check for convergence. Before the interviews were
conducted, the interview protocol, which is in Appendix 1,
was reviewed and critiqued by two professors specializing in
ethics and a professor with expertise in qualitative research. It
was pretested on two senior advertising executives.
Nine academic leaders from highly respected university
advertising programs that are typically ranked in the top 10
were interviewed by telephone or in person to examine three
issues: (1) the manner in which ethics content is integrated into
the university curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate
levels, (2) issues related to advertising ethics that they see as
important now and in the future, and (3) research that academ-
ics could conduct to further the field of advertising ethics. Six
of the nine academic leaders were chairs or directors of leading
university programs in advertising, and three were academics
who teach and research issues of advertising ethics whom the
chairs directed us to interview. All informants were promised
anonymity and confidentiality for themselves and their uni-
versities to mitigate social desirability biases and posturing.
All interviews were audio recorded. Before the interviews were
conducted, the interview protocol, which is in Appendix 2,
was reviewed and critiqued by two professors, one who had
served as an academic administrator and one who specializes
in qualitative research.
Because agency Web sites present the public faces of the
agencies and are frequently accessed for information about
the agencies, we also examined the Web sites of the largest
25 U.S. agencies as ranked by agency revenue (Advertising Age
2006) and analyzed their ethics-related content. We reviewed
each Web site thoroughly, followed every link, and read each
part. Web site information was coded using the template in
Appendix 3.
Textbooks on the “fundamentals of advertising” are de-
signed to introduce students in Colleges of Communication as
well as Colleges of Business to the field of advertising. These
textbooks are used both in required courses for advertising ma-
jors and in elective courses for students who are not advertising
majors. As such, the manner in which the textbooks present
ethics in advertising is a reflection of the state of the field of
advertising ethics and an indication of the way in which new
entrants into the industry are being prepared. Seven of the
best-selling textbooks were selected from sales data provided
by publishers, and ethics-related content was examined and
categorized.
FINDINGS
Our reports on the findings from our interviews with industry
leaders are followed by the results of our analysis of agency
Web sites. We then report the findings from our interviews
with academic leaders, followed by our analysis of textbooks.
Because the managerial insights on ethical decision making
and directions for future research are based on the interviews,
they are reported as findings.
Perspectives of Industry Leaders
We were curious to see whether our industry leader informants
believed that the ethical issues in advertising have changed
in recent years. The answer was yes—and no. Our informants
drew a distinction between traditional and new ethical issues.
That is, despite changes, many of the traditional ethical is-
sues are essentially the same. New and significantly different
ethical issues are emerging as a result of the electronic envi-
ronment, however. In our interviews, we quickly saw another
distinction. There are ethical issues related to the advertising
message, and there are issues related to the advertising busi-
ness. Message ethics has to do with creating and delivering
the commercial message, while business ethics deals with the
processes involved in running the advertising agency. Are new
issues related to messaging ethics different from traditional
issues? Our informants persuaded us that yes, new messaging
ethics issues are different in kind from traditional issues. Are
new issues of business ethics different from traditional issues?
No, our data indicated that new issues are not different in
kind, but they often are different in degree when compared to
traditional issues of business ethics; the risks, the rewards, and
the temptations are often greater. In addition to message ethics
and business ethics, our informants often brought up issues
that we categorized as CSR that encompassed contributions
to the larger community such as pro bono work promoting
social causes.
Message Ethics
The traditional challenge of advertising is to create a commer-
cial message that is both effective in selling and truthful. Our
industry leaders did not find this to be a difficult or perplex-
ing issue with respect to traditional mass media. In contrast,
however, issues that are both difficult and perplexing arise in
the environment created by new and nontraditional media.
Traditional Media. The age-old question of truth in advertis-
ing as it relates to traditional media is perceived to be simple
and straightforward by industry leaders. Academics that we
interviewed suggested otherwise, and there is debate in the
scholarly literature, but industry leaders did not perceive truth

in advertising in traditional media to raise difficult issues. As
one said:
The message must be true to what the product or service
is. . . . I shouldn’t say it is simple, but it is very simple to
me. . . . If you’re talking about existing communication models
[mass media advertising] . . . I think that people are grounded
and do the right thing.
Another went so far as to view it as a nonissue—“a moot
point”:
Is advertising truthful? It’s very much an overblown and un-
realistic criticism. . . . Advertising does not fabricate stories
about products or brands because that is self-defeating. . . . It
has become almost a moot point. Advertising, as far as product
claims are concerned, is truthful, and I don’t think that is an
ongoing ethical issue.
A third explained, “The philosophy with which we approach
our work is rooted in the truth.” Yet another said, “Our job is
to help our clients find the inherent drama in a product and
to tell that in an ethical way.” One informant pointed to the
checks and balances of traditional media:
The risk of advertisers not telling the truth in advertising
[in traditional media] is quite low. There are checks and
balances.
These checks and balances encompass laws, regulatory over-
sight, self-regulation, media guidelines, and various other
policing mechanisms.
Academics, however, were not as sanguine as practitioners
concerning issues related to truth in advertising in traditional
media. One academic voiced his concerns:
I don’t think that we are clear-cut about what deceptive ad-
vertising is and what we can allow and what we cannot allow.
I see a lot of advertising, and I am just appalled that it is even
allowed. I say to myself, “We make a big deal about decep-
tion in some areas, and in other areas, we just wink and turn
our heads and don’t clamp down.” Sometimes it’s politically
driven; it depends upon certain industries that are lobby-
ing. . . . I’m just appalled at some of the infomercials . . . or
some of the get-rich-quick schemes . . . Medical claims—we
need to clean up our act.
Scholarship also raises debates concerning ethical issues related
to traditional media (e.g., Pollay 1986; Spence and Van Heer-
eken 2005). Nonetheless, industry leaders were almost universal
in their belief that these issues pose few problems today.
New and Nontraditional Media. Once the topic shifted from
traditional media to new and nontraditional media, the tenor
of the conversation with practitioners and academics alike
changed dramatically.
Spring 2009 87
The challenge is where we are going in the future as commu-
nication media evolve. I say that is where the open question
is. . . . Every single day, everything we do is continually evolv-
ing. . . . The world we are living in is increasingly gray.
The ethical issues presented in new media and nontradi-
tional media are different in kind. Industry leaders perceived
“a host of ethical issues arising out of the Internet and the
blogosphere we live in.” The concerns have largely to do
with the absence of checks and balances, the advertiser’s loss
of control, transparency, and privacy. Moreover, no consensus
has emerged regarding what is ethical behavior, and there is
no sense that industry participants are collaborating to build
consensus on these topics.
Technologically driven new media were characterized
as “The Wild West”—a rough and tough, no-holds-barred
context in which the regulations, guidelines, and controls of
traditional media are absent. One industry leader voiced the
concerns of many:
[W]hen clients say, “I want to reach a certain audience,” we
can go around the system, meaning we can go on the Inter-
net or on other things that are uncontrollable. . . . You can
advertise anything. . . . How do we do the right thing in a
media environment that is agnostic to being right?
Another elaborated:
Nobody regulates the Internet. It’s like Howard Stern living
down to his image. People can make more money by pander-
ing to the lowest common denominator because the Internet
provides a way to advertise around traditional media.
An additional frequently cited problem was the advertiser’s
loss of control over the message itself. In traditional media,
advertisers create commercial content, but in new media,
consumers also generate content, which creates new and dif-
ferent ethical issues:
New media, new ways to reach people, everyone has access
to everything. . . . Anybody can say anything about anybody
or anything at any time.
Another lamented the lack of ethics demonstrated by some
consumers and noted the increased importance of a defensive
role for advertisers and their agencies.
There is so much going back and forth between consumers
on the Internet that shouldn’t be from any standpoint of
morality, legality, or ethics. Advertising has to be doubly
careful about what it associates its client’s products and
brands with.
Despite the problem it creates, the active participation of
consumers and their ability to create messages can have up-
sides. It can provide a potential check on unethical behavior
88 The Journal of Advertising
by advertisers. Though an atypical response, one industry
leader noted:
There is such a forum for reaction [on the Internet]. . . . It’s
harder and harder to become unethical if you were intending
to do that. Things get uncovered so rapidly with blogs and
postings and everything else. . . . The public sits in judgment
more readily than ever before.
Nonetheless, the situation is complex. An academic predicted
that firms will eventually be held responsible for what consum-
ers say about brands on the Internet:
A company could hide behind individual consumers on blogs.
I don’t think this is going to go on forever. I think that some-
body is going to say, “You’re providing the consumer with
a way to make a public commercial message. Therefore, you
are responsible for it.” . . . but consumers could hide behind
free speech.
This is an interesting observation. Although this is not the
place for an extended discussion of the First Amendment—and
First Amendment doctrine is in flux—the ability to regulate
corporate speech differs from the ability to regulate the speech
of individuals. In short, our informants saw major changes
regarding accountability, checks and balances, and regulation
when it came to new media.
Issues of personal data and the related privacy issues also
quickly came to the fore in discussions of new media. As one
industry leader explained:
You go to a store. You walk in; you walk out. Very little is
known about you. You go to a Web site. Much more is known
about you.
Knowledge about consumers is power, and that power
can easily be abused, especially in a world of one-to-one
communication:
One of the biggest issues as we move to more one-to-one com-
munication is data and how can you use it. . . . How many
times have you seen a major marketer let a bunch of data out
about people? Clearly, where I get the most troubled about
ethics is when people know things about me that I don’t want
them to know that I consider my innermost private informa-
tion. That data is known by the marketer, by the advertising
agency—maybe blind, maybe not. It’s known by a lot of
people, and as that circle of people increases, there are more
and more opportunities for that to break down.
Again and again, our informants raised questions regarding
appropriate use, but solutions were not offered:
In the emerging digital marketing front—the world we live
in now—how much information is permissible? How much
are you willing to share? . . . What are the norms of appropri-
ate practice?
Issues related to transparency were raised regarding new
media (e.g., the Internet) and nontraditional media alike. Non-
traditional media encompasses the likes of paid viral marketing
and product placement, and the use of it is mushrooming. One
industry leader characterized the underlying ethical issue as,
“How transparent does a company need to be in general?” For
example, when people are hired to give seemingly spontaneous
product testimonials and recommendations as in buzz or viral
marketing, do the message recipients have a right to know that
the messages are paid, commercial messages? Does product
placement in movies and television shows use entertainment
to mask commercial messages? A specific example of transpar-
ency issues is a blog praising Wal-Mart called “Wal-Marting
Across America” that appeared to be a grassroots effort created
by a man and woman traveling across America in an RV and
staying in Wal-Mart parking lots (Gunther 2006). The blog
was actually created by three employees of Edelman Public
Relations, for whom Wal-Mart was a paying client.
This practice of “planting” information on blogs has been
dubbed “flogging.” An academic informant reported that he
had been contacted by a company wanting student interns to
masquerade as consumer bloggers. The company representa-
tive claimed that he had already signed up one university to
participate in the internship. Do consumers have a right to
know when they are being subjected to a commercial message
in a blog or another supposedly objective source? Do they have
a right to know who is creating the message? An executive
made an insightful observation on the changing role of the
messenger:
It used to make sense not to kill the messenger. Now I’m not
so sure. It used to be that the medium was the message. Now
the messenger is the message.
Some industry leaders saw problems with paid viral marketing
and flogging. As one noted:
I don’t think people like to be conned. I don’t think people
like people who trick them . . . pretending to be tourists,
hanging out in the bar, pretending to be regular consumers
when they are being paid by the advertiser. How do people
feel about that?
However, practitioners observed a lack of consensus within
the industry regarding issues of new and nontraditional
media:
I don’t think that the norms have been established because
everything is evolving so quickly.
The lack of consensus is reflected by the fact that major market-
ers such as Ford with the introduction of the Focus (Murphy
et al. 2005) and P&G with its Tremor word-of-mouth market-
ing use forms of paid viral marketing (Wells, Moriarty, and

Burnett 2006). One industry leader called for collaboration
within the industry to come to consensus regarding what is
and is not ethical, but he observed that such dialogue is not
occurring:
When it comes to ethics, there needs to be a lot more col-
laboration within the industry. . . . We need as an industry to
come together and talk about this stuff more and come to some
consensus. And that is not happening. The debate about what’s
right or wrong—what’s ethical or not—is not being discussed
very much in this industry. And I don’t know why. . . . The
industry is not a collaborative industry.
Another practitioner informant expressed concern regarding
who might create new industry standards in the future and
what those norms might be:
We’re [i.e., the United States] behind much of the world in
wireless and the use of the Internet. . . . China has more cell
phones than the U.S. . . . In the past, everyone learned [ad-
vertising] ethics from the U.S. In the future, the world may
be learning [advertising] ethics from China, where they have
no restrictions on private data.
Business Ethics
Our informants described “new” issues in business ethics in
ways that suggested that they simply differ in degree rather
than in kind. That said, issues are seen as more complex with
higher stakes. The temptations are greater, and the risks and
the rewards are higher.
The issues are still the same. Don’t lie. Don’t cheat. Don’t steal.
It’s just that now there are more opportunities to lie, cheat,
and steal, and they are bigger and more lucrative. . . . It’s more
sophisticated now. . . . The stakes are higher, the risks are big-
ger, the rewards are bigger. But more people are watching.
Industry leaders tied the difference in degree to structural
changes in the industry. Bigger organizations are global in
scope and now offer much more than the traditional advertis-
ing services.
The business is more complex. [Advertising agency] organi-
zations are bigger, international, and with multiple product
lines. . . . There are more ways to do paper tricks, to fool the
tax man, the home office, the client. These are largely due to
structural changes in the way the business is run.
Certainly, a major structural change with the potential to
affect business ethics is the advent of publicly traded holding
companies as owners of multiple advertising agency networks
and specialized marketing services companies. Organiza-
tions such as Omnicom, WPP, and Interpublic have been
dubbed “global network communications agencies” (Tharp
and Jeong 2001). They certainly increase the complexity of
Spring 2009 89
traditional business ethics issues. For example, conflicts of
interest resulting from clients who are competitors have long
been recognized as a potential ethical quagmire, but because
of the complex organizational structures of holding compa-
nies, who is a client of whom is more complicated now. Take,
for example, a recent predicament of the holding company
Omnicom. One sibling, Tribal DDB in Dallas, was working
with another sibling, GSD&M, to pitch Wal-Mart’s $560
million account, while Tribal DDB in Chicago was working
with another agency sibling, DDB, on JCPenney’s $430 mil-
lion account (Williamson 2006). Tribal did not disclose the
relationship with JCPenney to Wal-Mart and was dropped
from the pitch (Williamson 2006).
When asked about the effect of holding companies on
business ethics, there was no consensus, and the responses
ran the gamut. Some practitioners asserted that the pressures
on holding companies to meet quarterly financial goals had a
negative effect. As one said, “Public companies want the big-
gest return from the smallest investment, which heightens the
temptation related to the traditional ethical issues.” Another
commented, “Unethical things can happen when wonderful,
upstanding people become fixated on bottom line results.”
Others felt that the holding companies had no effect because
“holding companies leave the agencies free to pursue their own
strategies, unlike parent companies that tell their subsidiaries
what to do and how to do it.” Still others asserted that hold-
ing companies had a positive effect on ethics through their
processes and demands for accountability. Some practitioners
acknowledged that it is very difficult to assess the net effect of
holding companies on ethics because of countervailing pres-
sures. They both increase financial pressure and also demand
increased transparency and accountability:
It’s difficult to assess the effects of holding companies. There
are colliding factors. Holding companies demand that agen-
cies deliver results in no uncertain terms. They bought the
agencies for one reason—to make a profit. On the other hand,
they have implemented processes, rigor, discipline, and rou-
tinized approaches that create a higher level of transparency
and accountability. Plus, the holding companies take Sarbanes
[Oxley] very seriously.
While there was not consensus regarding the effects of
holding companies, there was consensus that changes in the
nature of the advertising business had made it a more difficult
business in which to succeed:
The fact that advertising is a harder business with more
financial pressure now than ever before has heightened the
temptation [related to issues of business ethics].
Given growing business pressures, along with the structural
changes, industry leaders understood that business ethics
problems could develop. Referring to the much-publicized
90 The Journal of Advertising
conviction of Ogilvy & Mather’s Shona Siefert for business
ethics issues related to the Office of National Drug Control
Policy account (Edwards 2005), one informant commented:
If you ask anybody in the industry about the Shona Siefert
thing, the first thing that you’ll hear is “I can’t believe that
happened to her. That’s a tragedy, but I can understand how
that happened.”
Corporate Social Responsibility
When we asked about positive developments related to eth-
ics in the advertising industry, industry leaders were quick
to talk about what might better be labeled “corporate social
responsibility (CSR).” For the purposes of our study, we made
a distinction between the manner in which an advertising
agency creates messages and runs its business (ethics) and
an advertising agency’s pro bono work and other efforts to
make positive contributions to its community and to society
at large (corporate social responsibility). Although CSR is
related to and often overlaps with ethics, in some ways it is
substantively different. In fact, one can imagine corporate
social responsibility being used to mask poor ethical behavior
or to assuage consciences. Industry leaders raised two issues of
corporate social responsibility—pro bono work and workforce
diversity. Nonetheless, our informants saw their pro bono work
as evidence of ethical behavior.
Industry leaders spoke enthusiastically of the power and
impact of the pro bono activities that their agencies undertake
to promote social causes. As one said:
We tithe our time and talents by allowing people to use their
time and talents to make a difference using the power of media.
Are we using advertising to make money, or are we using it
to make a difference, and can both of those happen? I think
that they can. Making a difference is key—make a difference
for your people, make a difference for your clients, and make
a difference for society.
Another stated:
When we do pro bono work for causes—we’re donating,
among other things, the priceless value of an idea. We’re
donating talent. That’s quite powerful. . . . The talent that
we have persuades for the common good. It’s something very
few industries do.
Whether for the local homeless shelter or an international
nonprofit, advertising agencies provide generous donations
of their talents and energies.
The lack of diversity of the advertising industry workforce
was raised by industry leaders and academics alike. One in-
dustry leader asserted:
One of the most compelling ethical issues is diversity, and
we’re not making enough progress there. If anything, we’re
regressing. . . . Our industry is not accurately representing the
makeup of the U.S. population. We’re not creating enough
opportunities for minorities.
An academic identified and elaborated on a “pipeline” prob-
lem, which affects the advertising industry and advertising
education alike:
We’ve got to get enough people in the pipeline who are
interested in advertising. Traditionally, minorities have not
gravitated toward advertising as a field. . . . When you look at
the agencies, their record is abysmal. You might fault them for
not including diverse talent, but on the other hand, when you
look at people coming out of school with degrees, the pickings
are fairly slim. . . . We have to go down to the high schools
and start generating interest and identifying advertising as a
potential field of study for minority groups.
The problem of attracting minorities to advertising programs
was likened to the problem of attracting minorities to busi-
ness schools:
One of the reasons that we didn’t have a lot of minorities in
business schools is because business was not seen as a career
option. A lot of minorities coming to college are not coming
from families that own businesses or that have investments
in stocks and bonds, so it’s just a foreign field. Minorities
are consumers of advertising, but advertising has not been
presented to them as a career option, at least not one that has
been stressed. . . . We’ve got to go to the high schools to expose
minority students to career opportunities in advertising, and
we’ve started to do this, but we need to do more.
One can see the vicious cycle. Because relatively few minori-
ties work in advertising, young minorities do not know people
in advertising. Thus, they are not exposed to the career of ad-
vertising, and as a result, they do not consider advertising as a
career option or study it in college. Consequently, few minorities
seek jobs in advertising. This issue escalated to the point that
the New York City Commission on Human Rights reached an
agreement with leading advertising agencies to set quotas for
African American hires (Anderson 2006; Gatling 2006).
As can be seen, our interviews covered a wide range of topics.
Understanding how industry leaders view ethics, we believe,
is of surpassing importance. To be sure, they are not impartial,
but they have unique and powerful insights. Because of who
they are, understanding their understanding is important.
Their perspectives will shape future actions of the industry. As
scholars, however, we recognized that there are other indicators
of the state of ethics in the profession. We turn to them now,
starting with Web sites.
Analysis of Advertising Agency Web Sites
Web sites are increasingly the public faces of agencies, reflect-
ing their personalities and what they value. As such, it seemed

appropriate to analyze them for ethics-related content as an
indication of both the prominence given to ethics and how it
is conceptualized and presented. We are not suggesting that
the prominence of ethics on the Web sites equals the ethical
sensitivity of the agency; it might be a public relations effort
to overcome past ethical lapses. Corporations with elaborate
codes of ethics may not be the most ethical. Nevertheless,
in the current and relatively new world of the Internet and
with the growing importance of Web sites, it is interesting
and instructive to see how issues related to ethical behavior
are portrayed. Because the Web is constantly changing, and
because all of the agency Web sites are likely to change dur-
ing the time lag between our research and the publication of
this paper, we do not identify the specific agency Web sites.
Moreover, our goal is not to focus on specific agencies, but
to characterize agency Web sites in general.
A content analysis of the Web sites of 25 of the largest U.S.
advertising agencies (Advertising Age 2006) revealed much
similarity in beliefs, aspirations, and goals. All agencies be-
lieve in the power of great ideas, aspire to create great brands,
and thereby, be the best at what they do. The dominant values
revolved around creativity, imagination, curiosity, and pas-
sion. Often graphics and high-tech entertainment seemed to
be of preeminent importance.
Most agency Web sites did not present significant ethics-
related content—neither messaging ethics nor business eth-
ics—in a prominent, comprehensive, easily accessible way. As
we elaborate below, almost two-thirds of the leading advertis-
ing agencies had little or no treatment of ethics on their Web
sites. Only one Web site had comprehensive ethical content
that was presented in a coherent and easily accessible manner.
A second Web site had substantial ethics emphasis, but it
was not presented in a coherent or easily accessible manner.
Five Web sites had brief but fairly prominent ethics-related
statements regarding the truthfulness of their work. Two
other Web sites had brief but fairly prominent and accessible
ethics-related statements about how they interact with or
hire people. Six Web sites had minimal ethical content, and
10 Web sites had no ethical content. Regarding CSR, eight
Web sites featured the agency’s pro bono work, but only one
Web site had substantial corporate social responsibility con-
tent unrelated to pro bono work. The agency with the most
substantial CSR content was not the same agency with the
most comprehensive ethics content.
The Web site with comprehensive ethics-related content
had statements regarding the centrality of truthfulness to the
work the agency’s workers create, their fiduciary responsibil-
ity to their clients, messaging ethics, business ethics, and
workforce diversity. A link labeled “Corporate Compliance”
was prominently featured at the top of the home page, so the
information was easy to find. The agency’s “Code of Business
Conduct” was presented with links to specific topics such as
Spring 2009 91
“gathering information about our clients’ competitors,” “cli-
ent invoicing,” and “entertainment, gifts and gratuities.” A
brief section on “Truth in Advertising” was included, but it
did not deal specifically with issues of new or nontraditional
media that troubled our industry leaders. There was also a
letter from the CEO stressing the importance of ethical and
lawful behavior and tying compliance with the code to excel-
lence in client service. Mention was made of a compliance
officer, and both a hot line telephone number and an e-mail
address were provided if one had an ethical concern.
A second Web site had substantial ethics-related content,
but it was not presented in a coherent or easily accessible
manner. Most of the statements were buried in a subsection
of “History” about the agency’s founder. They were disbursed
amidst other information from 6 to 18 clicks away from the
home page. An interested visitor had to hunt for the ethics-
related statements, all of which were brief, and piece them
together. Nonetheless, the Web site had statements about
creating truthful work, fulfilling fiduciary responsibility,
treating employees compassionately, considering character
in promotions, and not offending the mores of the countries
in which the agency does business.
Five agencies had Web sites that presented ethics as central
to the agency’s work output by making a general reference to
the truthfulness of their work. The statements were featured
in sections that were likely to be visited frequently, such as
“Our Mission” or “About Us.” The comments were brief and
without elaboration, however. Some were direct and strong,
while others were broad and vague, such as “doing what’s
right” or “knowing the truths of the marketplace.” Three of
the five also had a passing reference to how people are treated
(e.g., with respect or dignity). Two of the five Web sites in-
cluded “integrity” amidst a list of values or characteristics.
One had a statement of commitment to supplier diversity.
Two Web sites had ethics-related statements regard-
ing how they interact with or hire people. One focused on
“respecting—and treating—customers for who they are:
human beings.” However, the elaboration provided sounded
primarily like a marketing approach: “we’ve taken the best
aspects of human relationships and applied them to improved
marketing.” The other Web site featured the agency’s com-
mitment to employee and supplier diversity and claimed to
employ “people with integrity.”
Six Web sites had minimal ethical content, consisting of
a single line buried amidst other information. Typical were
claims to be “respectful” partners, individuals who “play fair,”
or “equal opportunity” employers. Ten Web sites had nothing
that could remotely be considered ethical content.
Regarding corporate social responsibility, nine Web
sites had substantial content. Eight of them highlighted
the agency’s pro bono work for nonprofit causes. Only one
Web site had substantial content unrelated to pro bono
92 The Journal of Advertising
work. It described the agency’s participation in three pro-
grams designed to expose minority public school students
to advertising as a career, as well as an annual day in which
agency employees volunteer for nonprofit organizations. It
is interesting to note that none of the Web sites dealt with
issues related to preserving the natural environment, which
is a frequent topic in the corporate social responsibility sec-
tions of corporate Web sites.
Again, we do not mean to suggest that the design of Web
sites is directly correlated to ethical behavior. As with cor-
porate codes of ethics, however, attention or the lack thereof
given to ethics by a firm as it seeks to convey its mission and
principles may be reinforcing.
Perspectives of Academic Leaders
As explained in the Methods section, we interviewed depart-
ment chairs and directors of leading advertising programs in
universities to understand how ethics is incorporated in the
curricula of their programs and their perspectives on teaching
advertising ethics. Our questions focused on undergraduate,
master’s, and Ph.D. programs. Academic leaders reported that
ethics has been on the agenda more prominently in recent
years and recognized the importance of exposing undergradu-
ates to issues of ethics in advertising. On the other hand,
some academic leaders expressed an ambivalence regarding
incorporating ethics into the curriculum. The ambivalence
stemmed from concerns that discussions of ethics would have
negative effects on students, such as creating doubts about the
profession and reducing their ability to succeed. All programs
had a required undergraduate course with a substantial ethics
component, but none had an equivalent required course as a
part of their graduate programs at either the master’s or Ph.D.
level. Efforts to integrate ethics into other aspects of the un-
dergraduate or graduate curricula could not be characterized
as organized or systematic.
Some attributed increased attention to ethics to the
“Enron plus” effect in which the “plus” encompassed the
well-publicized scandals involving advertising agencies such
as the Gray/Color Wheel scandal (Edwards 2004) and Ogilvy
and Mather’s Office of National Drug Control Policy scandal
(Edwards 2005). As one said, “The [ethics] advocates have
had a context in which to make their case that they didn’t
have before.”
All of the academic leaders acknowledged the importance
of exposing undergraduate students to ethical issues in ad-
vertising. As one said:
The fact that we wake up in the morning and look ourselves
in the mirror and say that we teach advertising calls an ethical
issue into question itself. . . . I think that we as professionals
and as educators cannot ignore that [exposing students to
ethical issues] is one of our fundamental responsibilities.
Another expressed the dangers involved in not incorporating
a discussion of ethics into the curriculum:
Without discussing the topic of advertising ethics, advertis-
ing very quickly falls into being a device that is amoral, and
I think that we have an obligation to work with our students
to help them understand that advertising is not amoral. It is
not intended to be a vehicle to sell anything to anybody.
Several academic leaders emphasized the importance of helping
students understand that they have choices to make regard-
ing the manner in which they practice their profession. As
one said:
Students don’t understand that they have choices. Making
students aware of the fact that they can make choices—I think
that is more important than anything we can do.
A second academic elaborated:
Our responsibility is to teach students that they do have a
choice in how to communicate with people, and they can do
it in a way that does not encroach on people’s rights, modify
their cultural beliefs, or offend their religious beliefs.
One informant likened discussions of ethical issues to “lifetime
career counseling”:
The reason these discussions are important is because they
are more along the lines of lifetime career counseling than
anything else. You’re really saying to people, “Chances are,
you are going to be better doing things that are inspiring to
you, and chances are . . . that you are not going to be inspired
by doing things that are harmful to people.” Money will only
go so far.
Some academic leaders, however, asserted that ethics is still
not getting the attention it deserves. One observed: “Ethics is
a very important topic. I don’t think that many [faculty] are
treating it as seriously as they should.” Another said:
Other than a few lectures in a couple of classes, there is no-
body really agonizing over ethics too much, and maybe they
shouldn’t. This [department] is pretty clearly a commercial
enterprise and pretty clearly designed to generate revenue
for business.
Yet another observed:
I don’t see many people sitting around talking about eth-
ics. They’re sitting around talking about, “Does advertising
work?”
The above comments allude to a worry when there is an em-
phasis on advertising ethics, which can result in ambivalence
toward incorporating ethics into the curriculum, or worse,
omission of ethics. An academic leader elaborated on concerns

that teaching ethics might have a negative effect on students,
making them less likely to succeed in advertising:
[When we talk about teaching ethics], a reservation gets raised
in one form or another. Hey, we’re churning out profession-
als to be effective in this business; we’re not churning out
social workers. Because we’re churning out professionals to
be effective in this business, we don’t want to be, in a sense,
planting tremendous doubts about the efficacy about what
we’re doing.
Another asserted, “We don’t want to turn out people who will
only take on idealistic clients.” Yet another expressed concern
about the tenor of discussions of ethics and took a defensive
position:
How come every time we talk about ethics in advertising we
end up with advertising bashing? . . . Talking about advertis-
ing ethics typically is bashing the profession.
Required Undergraduate Courses with a Substantial
Ethics Component
When asked if their undergraduate programs had system-
atically integrated ethics into the curriculum, all academic
leaders answered, “Yes.” It quickly became clear that they
answered affirmatively because their programs typically have
a required course in which ethics is a substantial component.
The courses have titles such as “Advertising and Society” or
“Mass Communications Law,” and they cover law as well as
ethics, typically placing as much or more emphasis on law
as in ethics.
Only one program has a required course totally focused
on advertising ethics. The academic leader reported that the
faculty had debated whether to have a stand-alone ethics
course or to weave ethics into all of the coursework, but the
symbolic value of having a required course with “ethics” in
the title was the determining factor:
The faculty felt that having ethics as a required piece of the
core . . . where the students see the topic of ethics [as the course
title], particularly at the undergraduate level, that really settles
for them the idea of how critically important ethics is.
Several academic leaders indicated that resources were a
constraint. As one said, “We’d like to make ethics a required
course. We just don’t have the staff to do that.” Others indi-
cated that ethics courses have much competition from other
areas of advertising practice that are evolving quickly. One
informant expressed the departmental philosophy for new
course development as, “Generally, we target practice-oriented
issues.” Faculty and departments are faced with the question
that one informant raised, “Should we take up one of our rare
required spots to have ethics?”
Spring 2009 93
One informant indicated that ethics is seen as more cen-
tral to public relations than to advertising. As this person
explained:
Some of us teach public relations as a management issue—
not a marketing discipline. When you begin to teach it as a
management discipline, you begin to focus on the issue that
the real essence of public relations is changing organizational
behavior to better conform to the values and expectations of
the publics upon which your organization depends for survival.
Ethics becomes a core responsibility in PR.
A systematic approach to incorporating ethics into the cur-
riculum would be expected to involve more than part of one
course, but academics were often unsure of how and in which
other courses ethics was being taught. Perhaps this was because
the heightened emphasis on ethics is relatively new:
The reason that I am so vague [about when and how ethics is
taught] is that the ethics component and sensitivity has come
about during the past two to three years.
One academic leader described the process of integrating eth-
ics into the curriculum as “organic” rather than organized. In
fact, none of the academic informants described an organized
or systematic approach to integrating ethics into the courses
other than the one required course. One suggested that a
departmental directive to take a more organized approach
would be helpful, but none of the academics reported such a
directive or a systematic approach. On the other hand, another
leader asserted that strong norms regarding academic freedom
provided an impediment to a more organized approach:
I’ve never heard anybody talk about how we cover ethics in
specific courses. . . . I think that people would really bristle
if we told them that they had to cover ethics. . . . Academic
freedom is strong in this college.
Another informant suggested that her department’s emphasis
on ethics was less systematic than that of her colleagues in
business schools. Because coverage of ethics is evaluated for
business school accreditation, the number of hours dedicated
to ethics and specific areas of ethics instruction covered have
to be documented.
Incorporating Ethics into the Graduate Curriculum
Perspectives and practices regarding ethics in graduate pro-
grams differed from those of undergraduate programs. While
all programs have a required course with a substantial ethics
component in their undergraduate curriculum, none had a
similar required course in their graduate curriculum. The pri-
mary reasons given were that graduate programs are often cus-
tomized to the individual student and that graduate students
94 The Journal of Advertising
are older and more experienced, and thus, less in need of ethics
in the curriculum. Two of the master’s programs had elective
courses with a significant advertising ethics component. In
some Ph.D. programs, students can opt for an elective course
in mass communication law, but none of the programs require
or offer Ph.D.-level courses specifically on ethics.
Analysis of Advertising Textbooks
To understand better how students are introduced to advertis-
ing ethics, we examined seven leading advertising and market-
ing communication texts. Table 1 lists each of the textbooks
and the pages of coverage each gives to important topics related
to ethics, advertising regulation, and societal and economic
impacts of advertising. As elaborated below, these texts take
a broad-brush approach to the coverage of ethics. Only Belch
and Belch (2007) has two chapters devoted to ethics-related
topics. Also, it is the only textbook with any mention of ethi-
cal theory or reference to sources of theoretical discussion of
ethics in marketing and advertising.
Content and placement of the chapters with ethical discus-
sion vary. Such chapters cover social, regulatory, and ethical
issues. Two texts (Arens 2006; Lane, Whitehall King, and
Russell 2005) also have substantial coverage of economic
arguments concerning advertising, mostly positive ones, and
the chapters begin with these arguments. Only Shimp’s text
(2007) begins with a discussion of ethical issues, and it is the
only one to include environmental issues. The placement of
these chapters is interesting in that four of them are rather
early (chapter 3 or 4 out of approximately 20). Two texts place
the chapter with ethical discussion as the last one in the book,
and one has it as chapter 20 out of 22.
The titles of these chapters are illuminating. The Wells,
Moriarty, and Burnett (2006) text uses advertising and society
as its chapter title. As noted above, two chapters focus initially
on economic issues and then move to social and regulatory/
legal issues (Arens 2006; Lane, Whitehall King, and Russell
2005), and their titles reflect these topics. The Duncan (2005)
and O’Guinn et al. (2006) titles are virtually identical: “Social,
Ethical and Legal/Regulatory Issues/Aspects of Advertising.”
Belch and Belch’s (2007) first chapter title reflects its focus
on regulation of advertising and promotion, while the second
chapter title indicates that the content pertains to evaluating
the social, ethical, and economic aspects of advertising. Shimp’s
book (2007) lists ethics first and refers to environmental is-
sues in the title.
As noted above, the textbooks take a broad-brush approach
as is indicated by the low numbers (mostly one page or less)
in Table 1. Like principles of marketing texts, breadth rather
than depth is the order of the day. Some topics such as regu-
lation and self-regulation warrant greater attention, and the
FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is examined in some depth
in every book. Only three other social and legal topics receive
more than two pages of coverage: commercial speech/First
Amendment (Lane, Whitehall King, and Russell 2005), ste-
reotypes in advertising (Belch and Belch 2007), and targeting
of children and teens (Shimp 2007).
Ethics, the focus of our analysis, has uneven treatment across
the books. The Lane, Whitehall King, and Russell (2005)
text only contains one box on the 4As code, and the Wells,
Moriarty, and Burnett (2006) book has only a few pages on the
topic. A strength of the Wells text is that a helpful distinction
is made between personal, professional, and social ethics (pp.
86–88). The others have several pages devoted to defining
and discussing ethics codes that are followed in advertising
agencies. A trend in these texts, like principles of marketing,
is the use of ethics boxes. The Arens (2006) text has one in
virtually every chapter, while three others have ethics boxes
in more than one-third of the chapters. The boxes in Duncan
(2005) are much longer and more substantive than the ones
in O’Guinn et al. (2006).
Many additional topics that could be considered ethical are
often covered in other parts of these texts. For example, puffery,
targeting children and teens, sex appeal, and manipulation are
all issues that one might classify as ethical, and they are some-
times examined elsewhere in these books. As indicated above,
notably absent from all of the textbooks except one was any
mention of ethical theory or reference to sources of theoretical
discussion of ethics in marketing and advertising.
Managerial Insights on Ethical Decision Making
We began by asking industry leaders broad questions about
the state of advertising ethics, and their responses are re-
ported above. We proceeded to ask how one can encourage
ethical decision making in an advertising agency. We turn
now to their views. Their responses dealt with two general
topics: (1) barriers to ethical decision making, and (2) the
role of organizational culture. Perceived barriers emanated
from a general ambivalence toward management, the client-
based nature of the advertising business, and the pressures
of constantly having to deliver new ideas under deadline
pressure. The leaders widely recognized the importance of an
organizational culture that supports ethical decision making,
and they elaborated on the crucial role of agency leaders in
creating such a culture.
Management
In business, management systems, processes, policies, and
codes are important ways that organizations encourage ethi-
cal behavior. Advertising industry leaders, however, expressed
antipathy regarding methods of management. For example,
one practitioner asserted, “Building process in and of itself has
 TABLE 1
Comparison of Leading Advertising Textbooks: Page Coverage of Economic, Social, Regulatory, and Ethical Issues

Author

Wells,
Belch and Lane, King, O’Guinn, Allen, Moriarty, and
Arens Belch Duncan and Russell and Semenik Shimp Burnett

Year 2006 2007 2005 2005 2006 2007 2006

Edition 10th 7th 2nd 16th 4th 7th 7th
Chapter/last chapter 3/18 21, 22/22 20/22 24/24 4/20 3/20 3/19
Opening scenario Abercrombie and OTC Censorship Database Nutrition Offensive
Fitch Quarterly advertising marketing plus advertising
Dove Beauty transfat (Calvin Klein,
labeling Benetton, etc.)

Economic impact (benefits)

GDP (1)
Abundance principle (1)
Arguments–pro and con (2)
Choice (1)
Economies of scale (1)
Added value (1) (1)

Social impact
Controversy/problems (1) (1) (2) (1) (2) (1)
Stereotypes (2) (3) (1) (1) (1) (2)
Proliferation (2) (.5)
Taste/offensive (1) (2) (.5) (1) (1)
Unintended messages (1)
Manipulation (1) (1) (2) (.5)
Sex appeal/sexism (1) (.5) (1)
Obesity (1) (.5)
Demand creation: Mirror
versus shaper (1)
(continues)
Spring 2009 95
 96

TABLE 1 (continued)
Comparison of Leading Advertising Textbooks: Page Coverage of Economic, Social, Regulatory, and Ethical Issues

Author

Wells,
Belch and Lane, King, O’Guinn, Allen, Moriarty, and
Arens Belch Duncan and Russell and Semenik Shimp Burnett
The Journal of Advertising

Criticisms (micro)
Puffery (1) (1.5) (2) (.5) (.5) (1)
Dangerous products
(tobacco, alcohol) (1) (1) (.5) (2) (1) (2)
Targeting: children, teens (1) (2) (1) (3) (1)
Targeting: elderly and
economically disadvantaged (2) (1)
Advertainment (1)

Legal/regulatory
International (1) (1)
Costs + benefits (1)
Commercial speech:
First Amendment (1) (2) (1) (4) (2)
Privacy (1)
Lanham Act (1) (2)
Trademark + copyright (1) (1)

Agencies
FTC (4) (8) (1.5) (3) (3) (4) (4)
Rules (1)
Deception (1) (1) (.5) (2) (1)
Unfairness (1) (1) (.5) (1) (1)
Comparative (1) (1) (1) (1)
Remedies (1) (1) (.5) (1) (1)
Corrective (2) (.5) (1) (1)
Substantive (1) (.5) (1)
Evaluation/status (1)
FDA (1) (1) (.5) 1 (.5)
FCC (1) (1) (.5) (.5)
BATF (1)
State and local regulation (1) (1) (.5) (1)

Self-regulatory
CARU (1) (1) (.5) (.5)
Principles (1) (1)
BBB/NARC/NAD (2) (3) (3) 2 (1) (1)
Advertising agency (1) (1) (1)
Trade association (1) (1) (1)
Media (2) (3) (1) (.5)
Consumer groups (1) (.5)

Social causes
Ad council (2)
Cause-related (2)
Social marketing (1)

Social responsibility
Definitions (1) (.5)
Pro bono (1)

Ethics
Definition (1) (1) (.5) (1) (1)
Theories (1)
Levels: personal versus
organizational (1) (2)
Values (1)
Corporate ethics (1)
Tests—Golden Rule, television (1)
4As Code (1) (1) (1) (1) Creative
Code
AAF Code (1) (1)
Ethics boxes (17) (7) (11) (7)
Ethics checklist (1)
Packaging and branding (1)
Sales promotion (1)
On-line marketing (1)
PR /publicity (1)

Other
Discussion of Only book Full-page Strongest Section on Section on Good
levels of with two ethics boxes defense of other environmental distinction
ethical chapters on in 11 advertising’s promotional or green between the
responsibility these topics chapters social and tools marketing personal,
economic communication professional,
benefits and social
ethic
“Ethical issues” 7 very short
boxes in all ethics
18 chapters boxes
Notes: OTC = over-the-counter; GDP = gross domestic product; FTC = Federal Trade Commission; FDA = Food and Drug Administration; FCC = Federal Communications Commission;
BATF = Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; CARU = Children’s Advertising Review Unit; BBB = Better Business Bureau; NARC = National Advertising Review Council;
NAD = National Advertising Division; 4As = American Association of Advertising Agencies; AAF = American Advertising Federation.
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages of coverage given to the topic in the designated textbook.
Spring 2009 97
98 The Journal of Advertising
zero value.” Another said, “I’ve never seen a unilateral process
that can be applied to advertising.” While holding companies
have policies related to obeying the law encompassing issues
such as discrimination and sexual harassment, we found scant
evidence of codes of ethics or other management processes at
the agency level. In fact, some practitioners expressed skepti-
cism regarding whether it would even be possible to create a
viable code of ethics, especially for messages. One informant
said: “Frankly, I think that it would be impossible to write
something sensible. You’re trying to define good taste and
responsibility, and I don’t know how you define it.”
The ambivalence toward management appeared to be due,
at least in part, to a perceived tension between management
and creativity. Management processes are often thought to
be a potential impediment to creativity. As one practitioner
said: “Advertising is unlike manufacturing in which process
is required to create a product. Process can get in the way in
advertising. Process can interfere with and hamper creativ-
ity.” Creative people are not like other business people, their
work tasks are not the same, and thus, managing them and
providing them with processes that encourage ethical decision
making is difficult:
A lot of people who exist in our business are not business
people. They are artists. We don’t pay them to think in terms
of P&L and what their ethical responsibility is. We ask them to
do what has never been done before, to drive to higher levels
of creativity, and that is an onerous task. . . . As a result, those
people are a different breed . . . and it is a bit difficult to say,
“Now here’s your process [to be ethical].” Getting them to
fill out time cards at times is hard enough.
It was perceived to be difficult to institute processes that en-
courage ethical behavior without restricting the freedom that
creativity requires to flourish:
The question then becomes, “How can you integrate process
into advertising agencies in a way that does not hinder cre-
ativity?” . . . It involves striking a balance between having
enough process for control and accountability and having
enough freedom to do the job.
Our informants’ observations seemed to be in sync with
the description of the advertising industry given by Shona
Seifert, the Ogilvy & Mather executive who was convicted for
fraud: “an industry that has historically placed a higher value
on creativity and ideas than process” (Creamer 2005). Ms.
Seifert wrote this statement in the preface to a code of ethics
for advertising that the judge who sentenced her required
her to write. (The code can be accessed at http://adage.com/
article?article_id=46685.)
A minority of our informants argued that the advertising
industry’s antipathy toward management has had ramifica-
tions. For example, the advertising community has not had the
same emphasis as big business—its clients—on understanding
and applying management concepts and approaches such as
those related to ethical decision making:
Big business (our clients) has paid a lot of attention to orga-
nizational development and change management, but those
areas haven’t been a focus or a commitment inside the agency
world. Instead we’ve focused on human resources—finding
talent, hiring talent, retaining talent. How can you institute
and implement a change management program? How can you
design an organization to be ethical?
Relatedly, advertising agencies have not had the same focus
on management training and education related to ethics that
other businesses have had. As one practitioner asserted, “Ad-
vertising agencies are too cool for school.” Yet another noted
that training in the advertising business has concentrated on
“doing better advertising and selling things to the client”
rather than on management practices. Whether or not the
industry leaders are correct in their assessment that manage-
ment processes necessarily inhibit creativity, it seems to be
the conventional wisdom.
Dynamics of the Advertising Industry
Other barriers to ethical decision making are related to the
dynamics of the industry—the deadlines, the fast pace of the
work, and the constant pressure to produce new and better
ideas. These pressures, our informants told us, can cause ad-
vertising practitioners to lose perspective:
What’s unique to this industry is that you are so consumed
on a daily basis with coming up with ideas for your clients.
It consumes you because clients need ideas faster and better
than ever before. There’s no time to take a deep breath. . . . The
deadline pressure—there’s no time to get a bigger picture.
Client-Based Nature of Advertising
Our industry leaders identified another set of barriers to ethical
decision making that emanate from the client-based nature of
the advertising business and the appropriate role of an “agent”
in ethical decision making. Advertising agencies typically have
many diverse clients, and as a practitioner explained, responsi-
bility for decisions related to a code of ethics may be perceived
to be in the purview of the client, not the agency:
A lot of our clients have developed their own codes. . . . We’re
working within the guidelines of different clients. We have
business practices that ensure that things are truthful and
proven, but whether you advertise to these people or how—
in our business, that is driven by the clients themselves.
We need to mold and adapt to what their core ethical belief
system is.

Perceiving an obligation to mold and adapt to a client’s ethi-
cal standards can be problematic. A practitioner spoke of this
predicament:
[W]hen you have clients that say, “I want to do this on a porno
site,” or “I want to do this—whatever.” And the [agency]
people say, “Is that really the right thing to do?” And the
client says, “Well, it is what I want you to do.”
Delegation of ethical decision making to the client and ratio-
nalizing that “the client is always right” are problems seen
in many businesses (Drumwright and Murphy 2004). The
industry leaders whom we interviewed for this paper did not
agree that such delegation was appropriate, but they acknowl-
edged that the client-based nature of advertising exacerbates
the problem.
Some asserted that the advertising industry’s emphasis on
clients—“a client obsession”—has other negative effects that
are more subtle. That is, the strong focus on serving clients
detracts from the agency’s emphasis on managing its own
employees in a respectful and ethical way and on developing
a culture that supports ethical behavior.
Advertising agencies put more emphasis on clients than on the
people working on the clients’ accounts. This client obsession
results in not enough emphasis on people and culture.
Organizational Culture
Industry leaders generally viewed organizational culture, rather
than management processes, as key to mitigating the barriers
to ethical decision making and encouraging ethical sensitivity.
As one executive stated:
I think that culture is probably the most important factor of
all when it comes to ethics. The degree to which an organiza-
tion really accepts and buys into high standards is a culture
issue and a leadership issue.
While our informants were quick to endorse the importance of
culture, one executive asserted that the nature of the advertis-
ing industry and the people who populate it predispose many
industry participants to be less interested in culture than in
the work itself:
We have to be right, and we have to be creative. . . . So we
hire scientists and artists, and both scientists and artists are
not as interested in the culture around them as they are in
their art or their science.
Leaders were viewed as crucial to creating and maintaining
culture both through the example they set and through the
programs they initiate. As one practitioner said, “You create
culture by example.” Another practitioner spoke of the pow-
Spring 2009 99
erful negative effect that top executives can have when they
behave unethically: “The first time a senior person is known
to say one thing and do something else or is known to have
misrepresented something, it starts to erode the culture, and
it goes down from there.”
Agency executives reported that they often use storytelling
to communicate the importance of ethical values. As one said,
“The best thing that happens to bring something [related to
ethics] to life is storytelling.” Another informant said:
We talk about our values and how we came up with them. We
tell stories of our culture and our values. . . . We’ve institu-
tionalized redundancy without being boring. . . . Redundancy
is the queen of learning. Tell people the same thing, but tell
it differently.
Practitioners also pointed to the importance of openly and
candidly identifying unacceptable and unethical behavior and
of talking about it. As one practitioner said, “You fess up when
you mess up.” Another said:
You call out [unethical] behavior with clarity and candor.
Because we live in more of a gray world, it makes responding
to those issues . . . all the more important.
The importance of broadly disseminating information about
behavior that is not acceptable was also noted: “When I spot a
problem, I talk about it philosophically without calling names
in newsletters, e-mails, and speeches.” By exhibiting ethical
leadership, helping workers identify ethical issues, and gen-
erating organizational discourse (both positive and negative)
about them, the practitioners quoted above believed they were
assisting their coworkers to avoid problems.
Informant Recommendations
for Future Research
As we noted earlier, academic research in advertising ethics
is thin and inconclusive in many areas; as such, there is need
for more research. When we asked our industry leaders about
research that academics could do on advertising ethics that
would be helpful, some expressed skepticism regarding the
usefulness and viability of such an undertaking. For example,
one industry leader said:
Most academic opinions about and observations about the real
world of business are irrelevant. I think that having academics
give recommendations on how to conduct business in the real
world is a waste of time. . . . I think there is a big disconnect
between how the academic world sees the world and how the
world really is.
Others, however, called for a closer link between the academy
and the profession, with more dialogue and greater collaborative
100 The Journal of Advertising
efforts. For instance, another industry leader, arguing that
academics in general and ethicists in particular should not be
discounted as “eggheads,” called for a better partnership.
Some industry informants recommended research on topics
pertaining to management issues and ethics. One suggested a
project that involves studying the cultures of companies and
advertising agencies to identify “things that companies with
great cultures do that agencies do not do” that would include
and yet not be limited to topics related to ethics. Another
proposed a study on understanding the organizational change
needed to create a more ethical agency organization:
If you are asking people to behave in a more ethical manner,
how are you going to institute and implement that change?
How are you going to design your organization to do that?
Both practitioners and academics suggested topics related
to consumers and their perceptions of ethics. One issue had
to do with understanding consumers’ perceptions of whether
various questionable techniques are ethical, especially those
used in new and nontraditional media. As one practitioner
informant said, “I think what is missing in so much of the
dialogue is what are the expectations and the attitudes of the
public?” Another concern involved the long-term effects of
potentially problematic advertising. As an example, one aca-
demic informant posed the question, “Is it true that someone
gets fatter if they are exposed to McDonald’s advertising?”
Another academic proposed that research be conducted on
how one actually goes about making ethical decisions in
advertising:
There are certain decisions that you have to make in which
somebody has to be harmed, and how do you make those trade-
offs? . . . How does one go about making an ethical decision?
There’s a lot about, “Here’s the principles; here’s the theories,”
but there is not a lot about how somebody does it.
One industry leader noted the importance of reassessing
ethics on a continuing basis in light of new knowledge. He
asserted:
When Ray Kroc invented McDonald’s, he didn’t know how
bad high-fat food is for children. With the accumulation
of knowledge comes the responsibility to respond to that
knowledge.
DISCUSSION
The state of ethics in advertising, or in any profession for that
matter, will always be a matter of importance and an area for
disagreement. We do believe, however, that our informants
and other sources of information have raised significant issues
that we discuss below.
Traditional Versus New Media
Industry and academic leaders disagreed regarding whether
the ethical problems in traditional media have been solved.
Recent regulatory and legal activity are testament to the fact
that ethical problems can and do persist in traditional media.
For example, the FTC recently fined four marketers of weight
loss pills, including Bayer Corporation, $25 million for making
false claims ranging from rapid weight loss to reduction of the
risk of cancer (Associated Press 2007; Myers 2007). Assum-
ing that ethical problems no longer arise in traditional media
or that when they do it can be explained by a “bad apple” is
probably an oversimplification. In any event, letting down
one’s guard is risky. Constant vigilance in traditional media
is warranted.
The extent to which our industry leaders agreed that ethical
problems in new media need to be confronted and resolved was
striking. It is yet another indication that “advertising’s future
is now,” the digital revolution is finally mainstream, and the
media environment is being reshaped (Vollmer, Frelinghuysen,
and Rothenberg 2006, p. 1).
Transparency
One of the overriding themes in new and nontraditional
media involved issues of transparency. More specifically, do
consumers have a right to know when a commercial pitch is
being made through the likes of paid viral marketing, product
placement, or the Internet? What are the acceptable limits for
firms in leveraging word-of-mouth among consumers? Issues
of deception are raised, but concerns run deeper. Although
there has long been debate about advertising’s effects, one
of advertising’s strongest defenses has been that consumers
are intelligent and will filter commercial information. When
consumers encounter an advertisement in traditional media,
most know they are being pitched and can filter and interpret
information accordingly. When it is unclear that there is a
commercial pitch, however, the “intelligent consumer” defense
is removed, or at least compromised.
We agree with our industry leaders that issues of trans-
parency should be the focus of industry discussion and col-
laboration to form consensus. Some buzz marketers agree.
For example, David Balter, CEO of BzzAgent, said his firm
has changed its philosophy during a three-year period from
“be anonymous” to “be discreet” to “you must tell people”
(Frost 2005). He and others have formed the Word of Mouth
Marketing Association (WOMMA), which has drafted an
ethics code (www.womma.org/ethics/code/read/) calling for
“honesty of relationship, opinion, and identity.” We believe
an appropriate code should be written and widely accepted by
all aspects of the industry.

Privacy
Another theme among industry leaders involved issues of
privacy in an era of technological media and one-to-one mar-
keting. The right to privacy involves the ability of individuals
to decide for themselves how much they will share about their
lives, thoughts, and feelings (Murphy et al. 2005). Privacy
issues certainly have profound implications for on-line com-
munications, database marketing, and marketing research, but
this issue is not unique to advertising, nor to marketing nor
even business more generally. It is also an important concern in
the nonprofit and public sectors as well. For example, privacy
issues have had far-reaching implications regarding patient
information in health care and student academic performance
in higher education. In an interconnected world of data and
data sharing, advertising cannot see itself in a vacuum. There
is opportunity to collaborate across industries and across sec-
tors to set and enforce appropriate safeguards for consumers
and citizens.
Management
Management as a Constraint to Creativity
A theme from our interviews with industry leaders was the
resistance to management approaches that firms often use to
encourage ethical behavior. There was a perceived negative
effect on creativity. Is management necessarily an inhibitor
of creativity? Is this a perception or a reality? If it is a reality,
then is it possible to reconceive and reposition management so
that it will not hinder creativity? Could ethical management
perhaps even enhance creativity? These are questions worth
pursuing in management research. Like our informants, we
recommend more research at the organizational and industry
levels.
Ethical Organizational Cultures and Values Statements
We think agencies should develop a culture that encourages
ethical sensitivity, and we believe that creating and embracing
a values statement or corporate credo can play an important
role (Murphy 1998). Such a statement can provide two benefits.
First, it can signal to potential clients and other external con-
stituents what the agency stands for, making agency employees
less susceptible to the pressures of taking ethical cues from
others. Second, writing and discussing an ethics statement
emphasizes the importance of ethics to internal constituents,
and perhaps even has self-fulfilling dimensions. We know
of a PR agency that developed a credo similar to Johnson &
Johnson’s acclaimed statement outlining its responsibilities to
stakeholders and of an advertising agency that chiseled its val-
Spring 2009 101
ues into the floor of the agency’s foyer to serve as a permanent
reminder for all. Both firms claim that these statements have
had a lasting and beneficial impact on them. Ethics statements
do not always translate into an ethical culture, but we believe
that they are a tangible and desirable step toward the goal of
becoming a more responsible and ethical organization.
Ethical Treatment of Employees
An ongoing ethical issue in managing advertising agencies
is the treatment of employees, especially at the lower levels
of the organization. The industry is notorious for long hours
and relatively low pay. Some agencies do recognize that happy
employees are likely to lead to happy clients (e.g., Schlesinger
and Heskett 1991). Approaches such as increased training,
sabbaticals, perks such as ski trips, and attempts to make the
day-to-day working environment more upbeat have been tried
by several agencies with success (Lublin 2006). One smaller
agency promoted its “balanced” and lower stress work life and
solicited new clients by taking out a full-page ad in the Wall
Street Journal with the headline—“Sweatshop conditions at
America’s advertising/PR agencies must end.” Though this
may be an overstatement, ethical businesses of any kind must
pay attention to fair treatment of employees.
Power-Responsibility Equilibrium
We believe that the small number of holding companies that
now dominate the advertising industry should follow the
“power-responsibility equilibrium” (Murphy et al. 2005),
which states that more is expected of large and powerful orga-
nizations from an ethical and societal standpoint. The size and
power of advertising organizations has undoubtedly increased
tremendously; their obligations to provide responsible and
ethical leadership within their organizations, the industry,
and society more generally have increased as well. We call for
advertising agencies and holding companies to embrace their
ethical leadership responsibilities.
Web Sites
With some exceptions, ethics did not appear to be a high pri-
ority on agency Web sites. Only one agency had an extensive,
coherent, and easily accessible discussion of ethics on its Web
site. We are quick to acknowledge that the Web sites may not
be true reflections of the priority actually given to ethics at the
various agencies. In fact, several of the agencies that we know
do give high priority to ethics had little or no ethics-related
content on their Web sites. While we recognize that hollow
or hypocritical statements would have no, or perhaps even
negative, effects, it seems that agencies would benefit from
102 The Journal of Advertising
highlighting their genuine commitments to ethics on their
Web sites. Doing so would send important signals to internal
and external constituents in much the same manner as values
statements and corporate credos.
Corporate Social Responsibility
The advertising industry generally has a stellar record for its
corporate social responsibility through pro bono work. With
the reorganization of the advertising business and increased
bottom-line financial pressure coupled with a weak economy,
we hope this will continue. We also agree with our industry
and academic leaders that the industry’s record with respect to
diversity is not stellar. We commend and call for more initia-
tives such as Ogilvy & Mather’s participation in programs that
expose minority public school students to advertising as a ca-
reer (www.ogilvy.com/diversity/community.html) and DDB’s
Bill Bernbach Scholarship for minority students in graduate
programs (www.ddbcares.com). Initiatives such as these are
needed to mitigate the “pipeline” problem that our informants
identified. We also note that incorporating diversity materials
into the academic curriculum can better prepare students to
appreciate and work effectively with diverse groups of cowork-
ers, clients, and suppliers (e.g., Gentile 1994, 1996).
Education
Students and the Profession
From our interviews with academic leaders, we were struck by
the concerns that a focus on ethics would create doubts among
students regarding the advertising profession and/or render
them so idealistic that they would be less likely to succeed in
the profession. This is a question for research. The experience
of the authors is just the opposite, however. More specifically,
students are well aware of public doubts about the advertising
and marketing communication professions from the reactions
of their friends and families. Confronting ethical concerns in an
overt manner and helping students develop the skills and con-
fidence to deal with these issues effectively mitigates students’
doubts about the profession. There are curricula designed to
help students develop the skills to analyze ethical problems.
An example is the Giving Voice to Values curriculum collection,
which is a collaborative initiative between the Aspen Institute
Business & Society Program and the Yale School of Management
directed by Mary Gentile (www.aspenbsp.org). Since the skills
needed to analyze and communicate ethical issues are similar
to other problem-solving and communication skills, students
are likely to be better equipped to succeed (ethically and profes-
sionally) in advertising. Making ethical judgments should be
viewed as central to the role of an advertising practitioner who
is a trusted business advisor (Drumwright and Murphy 2004).
Ethics in advertising is a professional practice issue and must
be conceptualized as such by academics and students.
Curricula
Curricula, like budgets, identify priorities. While our academic
leaders did acknowledge the importance of exposing under-
graduate students to ethical issues in advertising, it appeared
that the manner in which ethics is dealt with in undergraduate
curricula could be more thorough, organized, and systematic.
In contrast to undergraduate programs, there was little em-
phasis on incorporating ethics into graduate programs. We
note that some departments have large masters programs in
which students move through a curriculum that is similar to
the upper-division advertising course sequence. These degrees
are referred to as “terminal, professional degrees,” meaning
that on completing the degree, students enter the profession
as practitioners rather than continuing in a Ph.D. program to
become professors. Often students in the professional master’s
programs are only a year or two older than undergraduate
students, and they often come from backgrounds other than
advertising, so if anything, they have less experience that is
germane to advertising than upper-division undergraduate
students, who often have had internships in advertising. This
lack of emphasis runs counter to the renewed push for ethics
in MBA curricula.
We were also surprised that there was so little attention to
incorporating ethics into Ph.D. programs. It would seem that
professors and thought leaders of the future should be exposed
to ethics as a part of their academic programs. We call for inte-
grating ethics into the curriculum of undergraduate, master’s,
and Ph.D. programs in organized and systematic ways. We
recommend a “both-and” approach—providing stand-alone
courses that focus on ethics in-depth (e.g., advertising and
society, advertising ethics) and integrating ethics into other
courses (e.g., creative, media).
Textbooks
In our opinion, it is a shortcoming that there is almost no
mention of ethical theory or reference to sources of theoretical
discussion in textbooks (see chapter 1 in Murphy et al. [2005]
for a discussion of this nature). Some emphasis, however brief,
on ethical theories would add depth and richness to any discus-
sion of ethics in advertising. While advertising and marketing
professors are not ethicists, scholars of many fields are familiar
with major approaches to ethical decision making such as
utilitarian, duty-based, and virtue-based approaches.
Advertising textbooks appear to be an ideal place to focus
not only on ethical problems, but also on methods to address
them. None of the textbooks called for a code or statement of
ethics for advertising agencies. In addition to reprinting the

4As code (which four of the books do), which has not been
revised for over 20 years, a call for a stronger corporate ethics
code for advertisers and their agencies seems to be a logical
appeal that could be made.
Faculty
We recognize that advertising and marketing professors are
not ethicists and that some may not feel qualified to deal with
advertising ethics in the classroom. We acknowledge that
others have found that some scholars in business disciplines
are not comfortable with such approaches either (see, e.g.,
Piper, Gentile, and Parks 1993). We emphasize that professors
leading discussions of ethics need not claim to be specialists
in ethics. Much benefit comes from merely helping students
identify ethical issues and encouraging them to discuss them
(Drumwright and Murphy 2004). It can be very effective for
professors to portray themselves as fellow learners. As Gentile
(2007) wrote:
But without suggesting they know all the answers, [faculty]
can communicate an unquestioning commitment to the im-
portance of thinking about and trying to act ethically. This
is the “practical” part of “practical ethics.”
CONCLUSION
Advertising ethics is a continually evolving field, and the pace
of change in the advertising industry has rarely been greater
or more revolutionary than in recent years. We were sobered
by the point made by one of our informants: In an era of glob-
alization, if proactive steps are not taken to set and enforce
industry norms, then norms will be set by other countries in
which technological media are proliferating, countries which
in some cases have lower regard for individual rights and eth-
ics. Whether the norms involve ensuring transparency and
protecting privacy in new and nontraditional media or creating
ethical organizational cultures and encouraging ethical behav-
ior by individuals, the advertising industry must embrace its
responsibilities and take more of a leadership role. Norm set-
ting should be both deliberate and collaborative. In the spirit
of communication and dialogue, both industry and academia
must become more proactive, individually and in consultation
with one another, in dealing with ethical problems and in set-
ting norms. While this has always been needed, we assert that
it rarely has been as important as today because of changes in
the structure of the industry, the advent of new media, and the
accumulation of knowledge more generally. Industry leaders,
academics, ethicists, social critics, and others may not agree
concerning the state of advertising ethics or what is ethical.
Disagreement is not the problem; avoidance of the topic and/
or failure to engage in a collaborative dialogue is.
Spring 2009 103
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APPENDIX 1

Interview Protocol for Industry Leaders

Identifying Ethical Issues Now and in the Future

1. I want to begin with a two-part question. What do you think are the most common issues facing advertising practitioners
today, and are there ethical issues that you think are very important even though they may not be particularly common?

2. Do you see new ethical issues arising in advertising in the future?

Prompts: Stealth marketing? Internet and privacy issues? Intrusiveness, given the explosion of nontraditional media?

3. You may have already addressed this question to some extent, but to make sure that I have all of your thoughts, let me ask
this: Is there anything about the advertising industry that makes ethical decision making unique?

Prompts: Client demands? Corporate parent influence? Premium on creativity?

Creating an Ethical Advertising Agency

4. How can one create an advertising agency that encourages and supports ethical decision making?

Prompts: Organizational culture? Role of leaders? Statements of mission, values, codes? Organizational policies and practices
(hiring practices, training)?

5. Advertising often comes under a lot of criticism. Do you know of positive things that are being done?

6. Does your agency have a code of ethics? If not, why not? Have you considered one?
106 The Journal of Advertising

Conclusion

7. Is there research that professors could do that would be helpful to advertising practitioners who want to ensure high ethical
standards in advertising?

8. Given that we’ve been asked to reflect on the state of advertising ethics now and to look to the future, are there other things
that I should be asking that I have not asked?

APPENDIX 2

Ethics Interview Protocol for Department Chairs

1. Is there any systematic attempt to integrate business ethics or advertising ethics into your department’s curriculum?

Ask prompts with respect to both undergraduate and graduate programs.

Prompt: Required course? If so, what is the title? When in their academic programs do students take the course (e.g., junior,
senior)? Approximately how much of the course is devoted to ethics versus law?

Prompt: Elective course(s) with a substantial ethics component (e.g., multicultural advertising, advertising and social change,
etc.)? What are their titles? When do students take them?

Prompt: Integrated into required courses? Which ones? Is the integration formal or informal?

2. On some faculties, the idea of whether or not business/advertising ethics can or should be taught is debated. Is the issue of
making ethics a part of the curriculum an active issue with your faculty?

Follow-up: If yes, could you characterize the debate and issues?

3. What do you see as an advertising department’s responsibility with respect to ethics in the curriculum?

4. I want to ask a two-part question. What do you think are the most common issues facing advertising practitioners today, and
are there ethical issues that you think are very important even though they may not be particularly common?

5. Is there research that professors could do that would be helpful to advertising practitioners who want to ensure high ethical
standards in advertising?

APPENDIX 3

Advertising Agency Web Site Analysis Template

Is there a reference to any of the following? If so, record the statement.

1. What is the agency mission statement?

2. What are the agency’s values?

3. Is there an agency code of ethics or any statement about commitment to ethics?

4. Is there any expression of the agency’s social responsibility?

a. Environmental commitment (e.g., environmentally sound practices in the workplace).

b. Community involvement (e.g., employees volunteering in the community to build playgrounds, etc.).
 Spring 2009 107

c. Commitment to diversity (e.g., hiring practices to recruit minorities, support groups such as Nike’s Global
Women’s Leadership Council or the Nike Network that builds internal support for underrepresented groups).

5. Is there description or representation of the agency’s pro bono work for nonprofits? (e.g., check press releases on Web
sites)

6. Is there any reference to nonprofit clients that appear to be paying customers? (e.g., check client list; check samples of
work)