Code of Ethics for Advertising

Tricia Tighe
pt636013@ohio.edu

Shona Seifert who drafted Code of Ethics for Advertising.
Source: plus.google.com

With the advertising and PR industry there is a high risk when ethical reasoning is not thought-out. That was the case for account manager Shona Seifert.

Shona Seifert worked for Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide an advertising agency that is in New York City. One of their clients was the Office of National Drug Control Policy with a mission to spread awareness about public health and reduce drug use.

Back in the early 2000's Shona had them as her client and helped with completing advertisements that encouraged younger generations to not use drugs. She then realized that the account was not bringing in the income that was expected.

As a result, Shona had her employees falsely change time sheets for other clients so that it would be billed to the Office of National Drug Control to meet the quota.

Once emails got out about the unethical billing committed by Shona, the Justice Department decided to look into the case. In 2005 Shona was found guilty on ten counts with one for conspiracy and nine for false claims according to the New York Times.

Apart of her sentence she was required to draft a code of ethics for the advertising industry. This was to have her take her experience and to learn the proper way of deciding between right and wrong.

In her draft she states, "A code of ethics is a system of moral principles that help us determine right from wrong in an industry that has historically placed a higher value on creativity and ideas than process."

Being in an advertising industry it is important to have a system of ethics to refer back to because it gets crucial when money and clients are involved. Even when tasks seem to be repetitive or boring it is essential to complete them the right way.

Advertising is a space where ideas constantly get shared and promoted it can be risky to not be protective of one's own work. Knowing what one's ethical principles are and having reasoning to back up decisions help enhance work not undermining it.

Creating an agreement with clients will avoid the risk of committing actions that are unethical. Shona explains that "every compensation agreement needs to be fair to the client for services delivered and fair to the agency for the cost of those services."

Staying true to values that one holds helps when a decision seems to be tough to decide. Even though ethical issues can seem gray there can be a black and white when decisions are chosen with heart. There might be dilemmas that arise but having that angel on one's shoulder show what that there is a right choice.

In an industry where the public is watching mistakes can happen and ethical issues arise. But Shona shows that even though a lapse in judgement happened does not mean that one cannot learn.

Her code of ethics teaches readers that it is essential to stick to one's core values and know that the client and public are relying on journalists.