Consider the last sports game you watched. Off the top of your head, what percent of the advertisements preached a product that is known to be unhealthy for you? Social Media? Coors? Smoke products, fast food, weight-loss drugs? Consider the last time you scrolled on social media. How many advertisements were there? If you can’t give an answer, the truth may be even scarier: advertisements are so ingrained into our lives that we forget they are even there.

Advertisements have been part of our life for ages. If we stretch the definition, posters or pamphlets that tell you what to do, think, and buy have immense influence on our lives, for the better or worse. In this day and age, unfortunately, incessant advertising is also one of the only ways to succeed as a company. This brings us to an interesting ethical dilemma: are advertisements, which are inherently coercive and manipulative, unethical? Or are they just an unfortunate outcome of a capitalistic system all of us contribute to? More so, who is to blame for the effects of advertisements—the designers? The large-scale corporations? or, shockingly, ourselves?

Before we play the blame-game, we need to go through the widespread effects advertisements have on our culture. One of the clearest examples of the negatives advertising poses is the female beauty industry. Cosmetic companies sell not just a product. They sell a vision, a vision of the “perfect female body.” This vision, which obviously includes their product, is often over-sexualized, and not to mention, impossible. Models often edit their bodies or faces in order to fit in with the perceived beauty standard, whatever it may be at the time. This just furthers a cycle of insecurity, as the beauty standards become more and more impossible to reach naturally. The damage this poses to young girls (and boys, but to a lesser extent) is potent. There is an epidemic of girls as young as middle school not eating, as they have developed body dysmorphia from toxic online beauty standards. Worse, many are ill-informed about the editing, lighting, and other unnatural procedures that produce a certain look. All in all, this is just one example of a overtly toxic environment created by advertising and to some extent social media.

Alcoholic beverages and cigarettes are another example, however, some of the most controversial ads these days surround vaping targeted towards the youth. Juul, a large vape brand, has come under backlash in recent years for creating ads that promoted the brand to young kids. Additionally, other e-cigarette brands have come under fire for marketing products with flavors deliberately meant to entice younger age groups. This seems like a clear practice of malpractice in advertising as it is appears unethical. However, if we take the underage part of the equation, as in, vodka ads targeted to an appropriate audience—is it still deemed ethical? Alcohol is inherently unhealthy: where should we draw the line regarding glamorizing an unhealthy lifestyle?

So here comes the dilemma: if we accept that it is impossible to compete in a modern market without advertising, what portion of the blame can we place on large-scale corporations? If we can’t place the blame on them, who should we place it on? I will run through several scenarios, using both the beauty and the alcoholic beverage/ nicotine industry to illustrate my point.

First option: blame the producer. The corporations are the ones, in the first place, who are making the products that inherently lead to unhealthy lives. But this line of logic is not well-thought. We cannot get mad at the alcohol makers if people misuse their product, no, this would assume that the customer has no control over their lives. Likewise, we cannot blame the workers who manufacture the makeup for the insecurities of millions of children. It is their job to make the best customer product, and since when have we ever punished success?

Second option: blame the advertiser. This line of logic makes more sense. Nothing about alcohol or makeup is inherently evil. It is the way they are marketed that causes so many problems. Predatory, manipulative advertising aimed at ill-informed populations is the main reason that so many issues have arisen. Yet again, these advertisers are also working to publicize a product with the sole purpose of attracting the most attention. For example, there is a reason why all fast food companies have the color red in their logo: it is supposed to make people hungry. But this seems unsatisfactory. We cannot just disregard all advertising as “completing a job,” especially when we know it produces adverse effects. But then, this leads to another dilemma—if we accept that all advertising is somewhat manipulative, where do we draw the line in manipulativeness. There is no clear boundary demarcating what makes one advertising strategy an amount of manipulative-ness which is considered to be ethical vs unethical.

Let’s run through a few options for lines, that if crossed, would make advertising unethical.

1. Lying: this seems clear, but it is done everywhere. If one markets a product that is a. unrealistic, b. unattainable, or c. both, should that not be considered inherently manipulative? The problem with this approach is that modern corporations can easily circumvent it. Ever seen those small texts that say “this product does not guarantee this appearance” or similar writings? This also gets into a sticky situation regarding individual agency. Although the product is being delivered in a way that is deliberately manipulative, a rational actor should still be able to distinguish the exaggerations in the product from what is actually being bought. Consider the common slogan, red bull gives you wings. Consider also a visual representation of someone drinking red bull and suddenly being able to fly. Now, this is obviously a lie, but we can easily recognize that it is so. Therefore, we wouldn’t attempt to penalize the advertisers—they are lying to us, but it is in a way to obvious that no one is seriously fooled, (at least in their opinion). It would be crazy for us to penalize them, and if someone actually tries to fly after drinking red bull, but instead falls to his death after jumping off a cliff, we wouldn’t put the blame on the advertiser. We would put it on the customer for lacking common sense. Logic like this—that the customer should be able to distinguish the smoke and mirrors—complicates the problem. So no, we cannot dismiss all as lying as evidence of unethical advertising.
2. Capitalizing on lack of information (Predatory Advertising): Consider the same red bull ad. But instead of being marketed towards rational adults that (hopefully) have common sense, it is marketed towards young children or toddlers. It says, in bright neon font, “Drinking Red Bull Baby Formula Gives you Wings!” Now, if the same scenario occurred, and a toddler walked off the edge of a cliff after drinking some red bull branded formula, the company automatically seems much more culpable. But what changed in this scenario? It wasn’t the slogan itself: that remained the same. It was the audience that the advertisement was directed to, in this case, young children. Just like the vaping ads that I mentioned earlier that contained flavors meant to entice young kids, in this scenario, red bull could certainly come under backlash for harming young kids. So not just the content of the advertisement matters, but also the audience. However, this brings up another issue. I used an extreme in this example to illustrate that the audience is a critical consideration as well. But it would be irrational to assume that the advertiser can completely control who their ad is distributed to. While marketers can control what flavors they use, where they position billboards, and what stores carry their products, they have no control over if, lets say, the classic “red bull gives you wings ad falls into the hands of a toddler,” and the toddler, after drinking red bull, falls off a cliff. Who is to blame here?

The blame must lie somewhere in between the advertiser and the customer. The advertiser should not be able to deliberately market harmful or deceptive products to an age group if said group lacks the mental cognition to determine the truth. In the same way, the producer/advertiser should not solely shoulder the blame if products marketed to an older age group somehow harm younger kids. At this stage, the blame lies on a combination of the individual who was harmed and the parent who failed to protect their child, not the corporation. Finding this distinction is far far far easier said than done. It can really only be examined on a case by case basis: all marketing strategies are different, and the age group being targeted vary as well.

Third option: I’d like to propose one more radical interpretation of this blame game. What if we are all to blame? We all fuel the machine of false and deceptive advertising when we purchase from it, and beyond that, we all contribute to our capitalist economy as well. If the only way a company can survive in this day and age is through deceptive advertising, is it really the company’s fault, or is it all of ours for creating a system that promotes this behavior? Of course, one could argue that just because deceptive advertising is a ubiquitous practice does not mean it is good. This is true. But it does not solve the pragmatist’s issue: if one company doesn’t utilize the aforementioned strategies, another one will just pop up in its place. In fact, that company will probably become more successful anyway—erasing any progress the prior company had made. The only way I can see to break this system is by creating regulations or financial incentives that prevent this predatory advertising. If not implemented, I can’t see a way the combination of audience, producer, and advertiser will break out of the cycle.