Questionable Ethics EOC-Week 2

My first example of questionable ethics in advertising is this Reebok fitness advertisement. The ad is telling guys that it is better to cheat on your girlfriend and than to cheat on your work out. I think this ad is very wrong because it is making it seem like cheating is no big deal. It also makes it seem like working out should be the most important thing to a guy. “What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public.” -Vilhjalmur Stefansson

My second example of questionable ethics is this Burger King advertisement. The ad shows a burger going in a woman’s mouth. The caption on the ad says that the burger will “blow” your mind. I think this picture is very inappropriate.  It is showing that it is okay to sexualize burgers and women. It is pretty obvious what the ad is talking about because no woman eats burgers like that. “I think that, too many times, business has been seen as acting in its narrow self-interest rather than, essentially, contributing more broadly to society. I think a lot of that is unintentional; I don't think that many managers are deliberately trying to be unethical or are not trying to be sensitive to social needs.” -Michael Porter

My last example of mean advertising is this billboard. This billboard is wrong in so many ways. It is implying that if you eat meat, you are unhealthy and fat. I think the worse part about this billboard is that it is calling fat people whales. People should not make others feel bad about their selves just for an advertisement. Not every person that eats meat is fat and not every person that is a vegetarian is skinny. “Standing with the poor means walking away from unethical leaders, even when their companies are 'succeeding.'” -Jacqueline Novogratz

Volkswagen Lemon- EOC Week 1

The importance of this campaign is huge. This campaign completely changed the way the marketing was at that time. Not only did the campaign boost sales, it changed the way that many people thought about advertising. “The ad, and the work of the ad agency behind it, changed the very nature of advertising—from the way it's created to what you see as a consumer today." The famous Volkswagen ad will always be remembered as the advertisement that went completely outside of the box, but still worked to boost sales.

This campaign was started for the Volkswagen Beetle because the Beetle was much smaller than normal cars. The company had to come up with something to sell the Beetle. They were scared that because it was so small and unusual, it would not sell. “DDB built a print campaign that focused on the Beetle's form, which was smaller than most of the cars being sold at the time. This unique focus in an automobile advertisement brought wide attention to the Beetle.” When going into this campaign the creators were not sure if it was going to succeed or fail. However, they were still very surprised by how much attention this campaign really got.

“It was shocking, to say the least, for an auto brand to call their car a lemon. What made the ad even more appealing than the shock value, was that the Bug was in fact (and still is) shaped like a lemon.” This ad was really trying to show that even though the Volkswagen Beetle was small on the outside, it was still big within all of its features. I think they did a very good job of showing that. The company really wanted to stand outside of the box with this ad. It was out of the ordinary, but it really worked out.