Question

In the passage, the author argues how advertising can work to our benefit. To what extent do you agree with his arguments? Examine the impact of honesty and integrity in the world of advertising.

Imagine that you were a Creative Director of an advertising agency which has been assigned to design an advertisement for a tobacco company. How far would you compromise on honesty and integrity. 

 

        I agree with the author’s statements to a certain extent.  What I disagree with him is that through advertisement, we consumers get information at no extra cost. This is not wholly true as firstly, the information may be false, and that would be lies and false statistics already, and not information as it does not increase our knowledge about anything.  Also, he said that consumers benefit from lower prices due to price-advertising. True, prices may be lower but do consumers benefit? Is this ‘lower’ price low to begin with? Take branded goods such as Adidas and Nike. They rival each other in selling sport apparel and the money they spent on advertisements go up to tens of millions or even hundreds, but do we consumers benefit? Even if the prices are lowered slightly, do we benefit if this price is still high?

 

         Another point that I find contentious is that advertising related to health will provide a storehouse of significant observations on the ways in which the benefits of advertising extend beyond the interests of advertisers to include the interests of the public at large. Firstly, advertisements like to be ambiguous about what they say. More of the effect than the figures are used, such as if a sports drink merely boosts the performance of athletes by 1%, this trivial amount will not be mentioned, but rephrased into a catchy and still correct slogan which perhaps says ‘gives you the cutting edge over fellow competitors’ or ‘feel energised with our sports drink which has been proven to boost your performance during competitions’. Furthermore, I am of the opinion that while the welfare of the public is taken into account, their interests are never, are not, and never will be taken into account substantially. The role of the consumer or buyer is not to stay healthy, but to stay spendthrift, and to buy things that benefit mostly the advertiser.

 

         I do agree with the writer on his point that information sells therefore people will research on more information so that products will sell together with information. Advertising companies require research, so they will employ people to research on these information for them, and people will want to research on this information. Thus, it can be seen that the more products needed, the more information wanted, thus products sell together with information. Also, I agree that advertising also elicits additional information from other sources.

                             Moving on to the world of advertising, honesty and integrity are not of vital importance for some companies as long as nobody knows that they are faking information and still fall into their scam and they are still raking in profits. Of course, there will be other companies that would rather lose profits then lose their customer’s face in them, and will never fake information, as it is not only unjust to the consumer, but could possibly endanger his or her lives. Companies have to get their priorities right: to fake information, keep their fingers crossed, and get as much profit as possible or to ensure that honesty and integrity are maintained, and keep their fingers crossed that they will still make a profit.

               If I were the Creative Director of an advertising agency that has been assigned to design an advertisement for a tobacco company, I will not compromise on honesty and integrity as if I am found out by my consumers to have been providing false or misleading information, this would be disastrous and I might face prosecution charges which is not worth such a risk. Instead of facing ways to falsify information, it would be more beneficial for me to focus on inventing tobacco that provides less health risk through measures such as reducing the nicotine and tar content or inventing more efficient filters, not only will more people buy more product, I will win their trust as my information will have proven to be accurate and useful to them.