Impact of adverts on the Moral Behavior
There are several driving forces that shape the decision making process, especially when it comes to choosing what higher goods are. These forces shape our moral notions of the objects we encounter in the society since we rely on their principles to understand their relevance to our lives. Such moral sources in the society today include individualistc utilitarianism, expressive individualism, atomism, evolutionary sources such as status, power, wealth, beauty, and attractiveness amongst several others as will be discussed in this paper.
Ads are any form of marketing communications force or marketing tool that is mainly used to sell products, services, images, and ideas through channel of information and persuasion and in most cases It focuses on the society's behavior. Commercial advertisements draw from these moral sources to influence the buyer’s behaviour. The advertising firms are keen to evoke emotions on the buyers to ensure that they consume the products. While drawing from moral sources such as utilitarian individualism, advertisers depict their products to fulfil the purposes that the members of the society are willing to receive from these products. For instance, an ad that depicts a vehicle with a big carrier truck fulfils the utilitarian individualism. However, an ad of a luxurious car fulfil prestige issues. Additionally, an energy drink might be used to appeal to power.
Ads can draw from moral sources in trying to persuade the potential buyers to consume products. While some ads are used to shape behaviour such as those ads on food consumption, they draw from the moral sources to ensure that they invoke the right emotions on the buyers. According to utilitarian individualism, a philosophy relating to utilitarianism, it begins with the individual as first principle. Therefore, the understanding of the society exists through voluntary cooperation of the individuals because of the desire to maximize self interest. This moral source considers the individual as more important than the community in which they live, the society, and the institutions in the society. Ads draw on this moral source to ensure that they attract individual interests as opposed to collective societal interests. Such moral issues are important in ads that are consumed by individuals for individual satisfaction such as food, car, and, drink ads. For instance, a restaurant ad that indicates that the guests are given bonuses on every pizza they buy on Wednesdays and Fridays appeals to utilitarian individualism.
Expressive individualism can be described as the individualistic tendency that wants to express and therefore fulfil oneself. This moral issue holds that, the individual is there to fulfil itself, express creativity, and lead others to their own fulfilment. Drawing from this moral issue, ads are conscious of the latter individual need, and have embraced celebrity advertisements. Celebrities are emulated for their selective choices, thereby leading others to their fulfilment. A cloth line ad that uses a celebrity or a well known celebrity such as Lupita Nyong’o intends to appeal to expressive individualism. Additionally, a perfume ad that implies that an individual would stand out wearing the perfume would also appeal to expressive individualism.
Ads also draw their morals from the atomism philosophy, which asserts that, the universe is made of several tiny and invisible particles, which in their configurations results in the multiplicity of visible forms of nature. According to this philosophy and its relation to the moral stance, individuals have varied needs, which are unique to each other, yet related in a way. Therefore, the advertisers ensure that they diversify their products to cater for the diverse needs of their potential customers. For instance, people have different tastes for colours of their cars. Therefore, the ads and manufacturers ensure that they appeal to every potential buyer by informing them that there are a variety of colours and designs to choose from them, thereby appealing to atomism.
Evolutionary sources of morals in ads are the most resounding phenomena in advertising today. People always want to associate the products they purchase or consume to power, status, wealth, beauty, and attractiveness. In most cases, these are the driving forces towards consumption of products in the market. While constructing ads, firms are keen to ensure that the commercials they run on the media appeal to these evolutionary sources of morals. Every ad strives to appeal to the relevant evolutionary source of morals to attract more customers. For instance, car ads usually use women to depict beauty and status to the heterosexual male consumers. Luxurious cars are also advertised to appeal to status, wealth and power in the society.
For the explanation of the moral sources that ad draw upon in making its appeal, the above link will be used as a practical demonstration. The links is much drawn to the moral ambiguity of advertising and how it has been used for spreading sexism under the mask of humor. The ad acknowledges the logic of using women sexual characteristic by the way it has earned numerous views with FIAT commercial having almost two and a half million views.
Links:
2013 FIAT 500 advert- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrdKr-p3fWc
The FIAT commercial draws its moral sources from evolutionary sources by integrating status, beauty, attractiveness and the feminism. The evolutionary psychologists give an account to how male and female genders makes their decisions and by the use of evolutionary sources. It is that what makes an individual to take sides when making a social decision. Example, is when men tend to seek youth and beauty while women considers wealth and status as their moral sources. This ad draws on sex and attractiveness by introducing two characters, - a woman, and a supposedly heterosexual male – and invokes sexual emotions on the man. The woman is attractive to the man and when she notices that he is staring at her, she draws near him with mixed feelings. Her bust attracts the man and she drops an icecream there intentionally to attract his attention. As the consequence, it is clear that women more selective than men about their sexual partners, and they will be looking for those partners who have the most resources to invest in their children. The tag line used in the FIAT ad also depicts the beauty of the woman; “you will never forget the first time you see one.” The appeal in this case is not that you will never forget the first time you see a beautiful woman, but the FIAT car. The make wakes up from his ‘dream’ and finds himself admiring a new FIAT 500 abath. According to evolutionary sources suggests that it is the way the advert is sexually provocative that many people find them to be of catching to the viewers. This raises a question why these appeals have been increasingly used and promoted by advertisers recently. The answer to this is that the sex appeal has worked in almost all of the ad that have used it. It is a fact that these ads, due to the attention they grab from the audience, they are the most effective in the commercial industries.
The most common and performing adverts are the one that uses sex appeal. The sex appeal mainly uses the sexual content in an advertisement. Sex appeal is mainly explained as communication towards a particular sexual context, whether portrayed as label information in the advertising context or as a persuasive appeal in the marketing contexts, which is incorporated with sexual information, specifically, the appeal is expressed as a notch of nudity or sexual explicitness in an advert.
Based on this example, there are several roles that sex appeals may serve. First, by including sexual material in an ad makes it an initial tempt to the advertisement; hence it has the persuasive power to the viewer to continue watching, thus stopping him or her from changing the channel. Second, as sex is arousing, it is used to enhance the delivered message as the Fiat ad does. However, it is not only arousing aspect, but feeling drawing, easy to relate, and mostly it is memorable. The other role is that the ads create desires to the product due to the evoked emotional responses such as excitement, feelings of arousal and lust that can change the audience mood. It is good to note that advertisements integrate associative properties with the product to make the advertised products instantly desirable.
Sex appeal is one of the very successful in so many different advertising campaigns, however, it faces many ethically associated concerns, in particular its effect on the youth and different cultures exposed to visual communications. Even those who have observed strictness to their moral values, advertising is practiced in such a way that those who have highly cherished morals, and values begin to be eroded and weakened. Advertising is a dissertations that reflect and shape cultural values, stereotypes and norms, and is termed as one of the principal powers shaping the world today.
Most of the sex appeal adverts grabs the attention of its audience regardless of all the other different variables, such as age, gender or cultural background. This is one of the most controversial advertising technique, although popular it attracts a lot of criticism. Most of the media companies broadcasts such adverts with sexual contents regardless of the specific age group. This has made it possible for most of the teenagers, mostly those who are at their adolescence stage to be susceptible to a great deal of advertising messages including those with sexual context. The vast and unlimited distribution of sexual materials on adverts, such as the use of female as sexual icons, have resulted in the distortion of many beliefs, traditional behaviors, and norms, particularly in the minds of the youths; young and innocent, and not fully developed a mindset of knowing what is right and what is wrong.
With the use of the female figure in almost all ads that show the extend of beauty: slender female models, has lead to the distortion of young females images, with many viewing themselves as being fat, or ugly after they have been exposed to such ads. The use of unlimited broadcasting of provocative adverts have adverse consequences and have lead to adolescent girls facing the risk to health due to the increased pressure for slimness and have caused health problems such as eating disorders and low esteem, which ads address in their appeals for evolutionary sources.
As parents are the closest people to their children, they are advised to take steps in ensuring that such materials are out of the limit of their children. Parental control features can be activated to limit specific age to view such contents. Guidance and counseling are also recommended as it gives the child the idea of what is morally right and what is not. Also, the appropriate body regulating the content to be broadcast should be put in place and implement the appropriate policies governing the use of sexual context as an advertising tool.
