jg488519@ohio.edu
THEN
When I was growing up, my family would occasionally get a subscription to the local paper and there was always a section for advertisements and local sales. I used to love to look at the ads and would invariably ask for this or that based on what I saw on those pages. Today I don’t bother with a subscription to the local paper. I get all the advertisements I could ever want over social media and online sites, news or otherwise. Let me tell you, there is a tremendous difference between the advertising of my youth and the advertising I see today.
One thing is for certain, the advertisements today are held
to a different set of ethics and standards than they were thirty or forty years ago … and that’s okay! The code of ethics for the American Advertising Federation
states with Principle Five of their current ethical code, “Advertisers should treat
consumers fairly based on the nature of the audience to whom the ads are
directed and the nature of the product or service advertised” (pg. 7). This
particular code includes advertisements geared toward children. For the sake of
argument, let’s define a child as anyone under the age of 18.
There is no argument against the saying “sex sells” and the makeup industry has never shied away from using sexual appeal and sensuality in
their ad campaigns. Oh, how times have changed though. Let’s look at a couple of examples from my youth for Maybelline
lip products and factor in that I was allowed to start wearing lip gloss at age
14.
These lovely ads for Maybelline lip gloss products are
selling the product to young women of ‘kissable’ age, an age bracket that is
debatable even in the most liberal families, with such sayings as “I’m not as
innocent as I seem” and “Promise Roger your strawberry kisses. There are plenty
of flavors left for Richie, Fred, David, Bob ….”.
I doubt my parents would have
even allowed me to wear lip gloss if they saw these ads. I did see them though,
and at an impressionable age. There were no restrictions in place to prevent me from seeing them. As the mother of daughters today, my answer to
buying either of these lip glosses would probably be something along the line
of “heck no” and a string of other litanies I would say to my husband in
private about what the world is coming to. What can I say, I have become my
parents to some extent. Fear not … it will happen to some extent to all of the
young and carefree, as soon as they have children of their own.
NOW
According to The
Effect of Advertising on Children and Adolescents, written in 2017 for the
Official Journal of The American Academy of Pediatrics, “the average young person
growing up in the United States sees anywhere from 13,000 to 30,000
advertisements on television each year.” That figure does not include online,
print, entertainment, or ads they see at school. That’s crazy! As a result of
that level of exposure, there is a pervasive concern for the vulnerability of
children to the ads they are exposed to.
Do I think that the current code of ethics for advertising
work today and are they being followed? Yes, I do. I feel that they are
followed much more carefully than when I was a child. There seems to be a
greater sense of social responsibility to the youth of today than when I was
young. Let’s take another look at Maybelline today for the sake of argument and factor in the use of social
media.
Social Media and online advertising have replaced the ad
pages of the Sunday paper from my childhood. Maybelline now includes social
media influencers as part of its advertising reach. Take for example the young
Manny Gutierrez (aka Manny Mau), who is an influencer and ambassador for
Maybelline.
 |
| Manny Mau - Full Face Tutorial Using Only Mabelline |
Mr. Gutierrez both represents and focuses on the
youth of today. Instead of focusing on sex and promiscuity, he focuses on
tutorials, applications, and positive images. This isn’t to say influencers are
perfect. They are not. Mr. Gutierrez swears a lot but, he isn’t telling you to go out and kiss every guy on
the block or advertise that you aren’t as innocent as you seem. He is
relatively responsible in his presentation and online presence, especially when
advertising on behalf of a company he represents. He also uses platforms that have added controls to restrict viewers when necessary.
Society has changed much over the course of my almost 50
years and with that change, there is a greater social responsibility toward the
youth. We are more concerned now than ever, over creating a positive environment
of self-acceptance, self-love, and empowerment.
Advertising has come a long way
toward being in line with those goals. Do they have a long way to go? Yes. Are some
agencies better than others? Of course. Are we better at following ethical
codes pertaining to the fair treatment and responsible advertisements directed
at particular demographics, namely children? By far.
No comments:
Post a Comment