Insights about the Ethical and Moral State of Advertising Practitioners

Abstract The study examines how industry professionals perceive, process, and approach ethics in advertising. Thirty-four in-depth interviews with advertising practitioners were undertaken to assess the type of ethical considerations experienced by professionals today. Deceptive advertising was selected for a shared context in assessing level and process of ethical reasoning. Two scholarly frameworks focusing on cognitive moral development and ethical decision making were used to provide structure to the research. Participants expressed a general concern for deceptive advertising and converged on conceptual definitions. However, none had formal ethics-based training to equip them to recognize and avoid deceptive advertising, and most viewed deceptive advertising in terms of legal—not ethical or social—constraints and consequences. Comparisons with prior research indicate similar patterns in relation to experiencing Moral Myopia and practitioners operating outside the ‘Principled’ level of ethical concern from the cognitive moral development framework, but new and different areas also surfaced. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.