Advertisement is everywhere. Its on TV, on the radio, in the newspaper, set up on billboards and posters. All advertisement has the same purpose of luring a bystanders attention and gaining them as a potential customer. When I read the article about the “false ads” in college searches, it really made me ponder on the value of advertisement.
Where is the bottom line for ad agencies and advertising? Advertising is an aspect of marketing, who’s main objective is to promote a company’s image. However, where is the ethical and moral limit on such ads? Morgan Spurlock the creative spark behind “Supersize Me”, recently made a movie titled “The Greatest Movie Ever Made” The movie was about product placement and advertising. I can draw many connections between the text and the movie on multiple different levels. For example, he travels to a school in Florida that has a budget so low that they sell advertising spaces on their school buses and school TV. This stuck me in the same tone as the false advertising on behalf of the CollegeBound and CollegeSurfing. Its hard to fathom that colleges pay thousands of dollars on search engine ads to begin with, however when other companies fake these ads in order to steal attention and focus from their audience, its a little frightening. One would think that the institution of college would be one unaffected by moral fallacies such as inappropriate ads, however that seems entirely untrue. Unfortunately, I believe this all boils down to greed. Companies trying to squeeze that extra cent out of the consumers, to hook that one unexacting person into the program, hoodwink that one extra student onto your site. To me it all seems basically immoral and unethical. In a perfect world, I would love to have this practice expelled, however in reality, we all should just try to be more perceptive of practices like this around the world. It still is really sad that as consumers, we always have to be on high alert of a scam. Is no-one trustworthy anymore??
No comments:
Post a Comment