WWKS or WWJS? You Choose

What Would Kant Say

What would Immanuel Kant say about advertising today? Well, he’d have a lot to say because he asserted that nothing was right or wrong, the only thing that matters is the intentions behind the action.

So, an ad is only as good as the intention behind the creation. Analyzing every intention behind every ad would take forever, but if a company is really looking after their customers’ best interest (which most companies claim to do) then every ad would be “good.” Imagine if all advertisers thought this way. How would it change things?

If all ads had good intentions behind them, then the public would take comfort in advertising.  But let’s be honest, not every ad has the best intentions for the customer. 

Some ads are created with the intention of selling more products, regardless of the consequences to the customer.  So you would think those companies are acting unethically because the intentions are bad.

Wrong.

Kant would say the intentions of the company were good, because he doesn’t specify whom the good intentions are for, as long as they are good.  The results do not matter.

Lets take a look at this ad:

http://www.thomaslockehobbs.com/2004/04-08-31-01.jpg

This jean ad is more like an ad for sex and definitely doesn’t scream, “buy Calvin Klein Jeans”, it screams...well nothing, really.  What about the intentions behind this ad? Do you think that advertisers had the best of intentions when this ad was created? What about their intentions for the company? Were those good?

Kant could probably write thousands of aimless words and never answer these questions, but overall I think this philosophy is bull, at least in regards to advertising.  Kant probably didn’t make many friends with this philosophy, and neither would a company that abides by the same.  An ad is only good if it works. This moves us into WWJS.

WWJS – no, not what Jesus says but what Jeremy says. Jeremy Bentham.

What Would Jeremy Say

Jeremy would say that an ad is only good if it has a positive result for the greater good. If an ad caused the customer to purchase the product, then all the customers died but the company made the most profit in a decade, it could be argued that the ad was good.

Personally, I think that Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy is easier and more effective means of rating the “goodness” of an ad. Named Utilitarianism, this philosophy allows advertisers more slack. To determine if an ad is good, all one must do is look at how the ad effected the largest number of people. If the largest number of people received a positive, pleasurable experience, the ad is considered good.

Check out this ad: http://www.tomsshoesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/toms.jpg

Almost everyone knows about TOMS. This ad encourages people to buy TOMS, which donates “a shoe for a shoe” and to give blood. Obviously, this affects a large number of people positively. So, this ad is “good.”

I believe this Utilitarian philosophy puts ads in the best perspective. It looks out for the majority. While having a majority means there is a minority not benefiting, it’s hard to argue against something that benefits the most people.

Therefore, I believe analyzing ads with old ethical theories is challenging but worth it. It lets you decide how to best analyze an ad, on your own terms. Companies should look at what benefits the most people, not what the intentions behind the ads are. I am most definitely a WWJS girl.

Need for ethics in media and business decision-making

The need for ethics in media and business decision making

When I read this question, multiple situations pop into my mind: Enron, Watergate, Jayson Blair, all those tobacco companies, even William Hearst and his yellow journalism. To me, that was reason enough to need ethics in media and business decision-making. All things considered, I believed the situations explained themselves.

They don’t.

We need to explain why we need ethics because of these situations. A recent article in the PR Daily said that PR students think they are supposed to lie. Logic suggests that if we let them keep thinking this way, there will be more cases for ethic classes to study.

So, here are many reasons it is beneficial to have ethics in a media and business environment.

First off, ethics is required for social interaction. In every situation there is a certain level of trust that must be met. When you order at a restaurant, you trust that the employee will bring you what you ordered and you trust that the cook will make it correctly. In the business world, companies do the same. They trust their employees to do their jobs honestly because if they didn’t, goals wouldn’t be accomplished. They trust other companies to meet agreements made and they meet their agreements.

Without ethics, companies couldn’t survive. If everything came down to lying, cheating and stealing, no one would trust each other and nothing could be done. There is too much interdependency in our business world – everyone needs something from someone. Since ethics is acting out on moral values and lying, cheating and stealing are against the cultural norm, the companies partaking in unethical decision-making would basically be asking to go bankrupt (I will get into that later).

The second reason is to resolve conflicts. If company A put out ads claiming company B had products that caused death and there was nothing that said false advertisement wasn’t allowed, then company A just screwed over company B. This, of course, is unfair and definitely unethical. However, we only know it is unethical because we know what is ethical. Ethics help make business environments easier to work in and make them fairer. Having an ethical code in businesses and in the media helps employees in those fields have guidelines to make decisions.

William Hearst believed it was okay to tell a little lie in his papers because it meant more business. What if that happened today and journalists had the ability to tell little lies like President Obama just committed adultery. Our culture, which doesn’t approve of adulterers, (see, ethics in work) would be outraged. 

Without having ethics, the journalists making the decision to write that story would be under no obligations to write the truth. The conflict couldn’t be resolved because, well, there wouldn’t be a conflict.

Thirdly, we need ethics because our culture needs some sort of moral hierarchy. Since businesses need the publics to be a business, whether they agreed with ethics or not, they would have to follow an ethical code in order for their product to be sold. Society places a high value on trust (as mentioned earlier). Without really knowing it, most people trust people to do even the smallest of tasks. If the public saw that a company did not follow a code of ethics, they would not trust the company.

The need for ethics in media and business decision-making is of great importance. Without ethics, the world of business and media would not be functional. Having ethics in decision-making, future PR friends, should be the butter on the bread, the parachute to the skydiver, the… well… you get the point.