Truth in advertising is actually a legislated issue. It is criminal to lie to consumers via erroneous messages and claims. Consumers are protected by various consumer protection laws. This is the legal and legitimate aspect of the abovementioned case. Truth in advertising is also an ethical and moral issue.
Producers, manufacturers, and marketers have the responsibility [...]

People feel better when they think they are getting a great bargain when they shop.  Knowing this, some retailers mark up items above the traditional retail price and then offer a hefty discount. If they had simply discounted the normal retail price by a certain percent, the resulting ‘sale price’ would have been the same. [...]

Marketing ‘noise’ is any marketing communications strategy that can get the attention of the target market to the product or service being marketed or sold. Ordinarily, there are tried and true strategies to create this attention-getting ‘noise.’ Advertising (tri-media campaign of print, radio, and television ads), promotional activities, PR/public relations that usually takes the form [...]

The odds, however, have not really been in favor of sexually-oriented advertising. The stereotypical dumb blonde, the double entendre, themes of bondage, nudity, simulation of the sexual act, and sex jokes make viewers notice the ad and not the product (Taflinger, n.d.). The viewers’ attention is directed towards the sexual information in the ad rather [...]

Sex appeal in advertising is really a gender linked appeal. That is why much of the ethical debate revolves around the hue and cry of the female sector and the concerned groups that champion the cause of gender insensitivity and gender inequality. The campaign against sex appeal advertising is really a campaign against the discriminatory [...]

The purpose of advertising is to convince people that products are useful to them in terms of function, comfort, convenience, status, self-esteem, etc. Advertising is the showcase by which to tell the markets of these benefits that they can have from using the particular products. Advertising becomes successful when people agree with what they see [...]

Much of the problem posed by sex appeal advertising as a marketing communications strategy is that it serves a sector (male) at the expense of another sector (female). Because it is powerful and effective, marketers would do well to give consideration to the disadvantaged and offended sector. Marketers should never forget the primordial function of [...]

Sex appeal advertising has been loosely controlled, much to the disappointment of moralists. The issue is not so much the ethical dilemma it poses but rather the careful application, sensitivity, selectivity, and sense of responsibility that marketers should have. If sex appeal advertising is taken as an issue of communication rather than an ethical debate, [...]

Professional and respectable marketers follow an oftentimes unspoken vow to “tell the truth in all situations and at all times.” This is a tremendous challenge for all product producers, service providers, and their corresponding marketing arms. This, however, only becomes a problem if the product or service, to begin with, is a lemon or defective. [...]

The key points in the Statement of Ethics of the American Marketing Association (AMA) as revised in 2008 include the fact that the guideline shall be ‘intentionally general.’ And to make details more specific, what used to be General Norms has been changed to ‘Ethical Norms.’ This is an indication that AMA is now more [...]