Moral Duty in Advertising

Do you think that advertisers have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping people? 

Advertisements and advertising is a prime form of marketing communication for companies, campaigns and organisations to make people aware of their product, services and message. Advertising has spread into many forms of media; television, newspapers, magazines, posters, billboards and social media platforms, thus it has become a norm in our society. As you may know, companies typically use advertisements to persuade people to buy their product, however advertising also has great potential in embedding false information of societal, racial and gender expectations and stereotypes in our minds. Unconsciously stereotyping in advertisements influence us to make inaccurate pretenses of other individuals and groups.  Advertisers are the primary culprits behind these deception however as much as it is the unjust thing to do, I do not believe that advertisers have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping people.

Stereotyping in advertisements leads societies to make assumptions of people and can influence individuals to act differently and even use it to insult people however, in my opinion a lot of stereotypes erupt from society itself and advertisers simply adopt what society has created and use it for commercial purposes. I do believe that advertising has great influence over societies and its persuasiveness should be used to encourage non stereotypical behavior, to reduce discrimination,  however at the end of the day, advertisers have a job to do; which is to try and persuade people to purchase a product.

It is also evident that people respond more to stereotyped ads because it is familiar to them so advertisers use what would attract more people despite how devious it is. Stereotypes and stereotyping others is a daily piece of our lives and thus it is difficult to overcome something so ingrained in our society. People including myself are perceptible to buying products that are advertised comically or in an appealing way, which unfortunately is the nature of things. In addition, I hold believe that even if advertisements slowly start to deviate from stereotyped ads, there is still room for interpretation and despite advertisers efforts in trying to transition away from stereotyped ads society could still depict it negatively.

Only recently has society started to gain prominent followers in standing up for equality and advocating change so hopefully in the future, there will be a change in advertising.