Chapter Notes
The Inconclusive Ethical Case Against Manipulative Advertising
What Is Manipulative Advertising? * According to Beauchamp, manipulation occupies a position about midway along a continuum of influences ranging from coercion, at one end, to ration persuasion, at the other. * All of beauchamp’s examples include deceptive advertising * False or misleading assertions or omissions that cause reasonable consumers to form erroneous judgment about the nature of the product * Manipulative advertising is advertising that tries to favourably alter consumers’ perceptions of the advertised product by appeals to factors other than the product’s physical attributes and functional performance. * No sharp line between manipulative and non-manipulative. * Most common example of manipulative advertising is John Waide’s technique * Associative advertising, which includes associating certain products with a nonmarket good. For example: using sex as a way to sell * The linkage between product and nonmarket goods increases the product’s perceived value * Michael Schudson describes this advertising as ‘ buy me and you will enjoy life.
The Effects of Manipulative Advertising: What the Critics Think * John Kenneth Galbraith’s dependence effect * The consumer does not create the want for a product; the company producing the product creates the wants that the company later satisfies. * It’s impossible to defend production, as an entity that satisfies wants when they are the ones creating the want in the first place. The company did not in this case satisfy anything if they had not created the want in the beginning. * Richard Lippke thinks that advertising success comes from depriving people from autonomy. * The human component of the machine must be motivated to play their role: * Implanting in people an intense desire for consumer goods * Requiring that they do productive work to get the money to buy those
What Is Manipulative Advertising? * According to Beauchamp, manipulation occupies a position about midway along a continuum of influences ranging from coercion, at one end, to ration persuasion, at the other. * All of beauchamp’s examples include deceptive advertising * False or misleading assertions or omissions that cause reasonable consumers to form erroneous judgment about the nature of the product * Manipulative advertising is advertising that tries to favourably alter consumers’ perceptions of the advertised product by appeals to factors other than the product’s physical attributes and functional performance. * No sharp line between manipulative and non-manipulative. * Most common example of manipulative advertising is John Waide’s technique * Associative advertising, which includes associating certain products with a nonmarket good. For example: using sex as a way to sell * The linkage between product and nonmarket goods increases the product’s perceived value * Michael Schudson describes this advertising as ‘ buy me and you will enjoy life.
The Effects of Manipulative Advertising: What the Critics Think * John Kenneth Galbraith’s dependence effect * The consumer does not create the want for a product; the company producing the product creates the wants that the company later satisfies. * It’s impossible to defend production, as an entity that satisfies wants when they are the ones creating the want in the first place. The company did not in this case satisfy anything if they had not created the want in the beginning. * Richard Lippke thinks that advertising success comes from depriving people from autonomy. * The human component of the machine must be motivated to play their role: * Implanting in people an intense desire for consumer goods * Requiring that they do productive work to get the money to buy those