Are we overstepping our bounds by over regulating advertising?

My mother and father always engrained a beautiful phrase into my head: Your impact is more important than your intent. That phrase has carried me through several situations in my life. Sometimes I may think that I have good intentions, yet the outcome of my actions may not align with what I was truly feeling. I think this phrase perfectly encapsulates advertising in the modern day. Your impact is more important than your intent.

While I don’t think any advertising company or brand truly intends for their advertising to have negative effects, several campaigns certainly do. Let’s take one of the most famous, if not the most famous, cases of negative advertising connotations of all time. Joe Camel was the creation by the U.S. marketing team for RJR, a large tobacco company. It was used to promote tobacco products and cigarettes. The controversy was, many believed that the camel was targeted towards children and young adults. The cartoon was childlike in nature and people truly thought that they were trying to seduce kids into being introduced to cigarettes. Eventually, after receiving much backlash, RJR discontinued the Joe Camel figure from their marketing and packaging. The question one must ask is, was RJR’s true intent to recruit children into liking cigarettes? Did they deliberately want to potentially ruin the lives of many young and prospering Americans? My guess is probably not. I think advertising agencies and companies themselves just need to be more aware of the effects that their campaigns can have on the general public.

In terms of regulation, I don’t think the American government or any agency needs to be in charge of regulating advertising beyond what regulations are currently in place. Companies have the freedom to advertise however they deem fit while following the current regulations. Yet with this freedom, like previously stated, comes responsibility. They need to be conscious of the problems that they can cause from their advertisements, not only for the wellbeing of the general public, yet also their own companies bottom line. I don’t think regulation is necessary beyond what the current regulations are because the general public can decide how to react to specific campaigns. The Joe Camel case was a prime example. People boycott products, start public protests, etc. against companies or organizations with controversial advertising campaigns. This is even more prevalent now that social media allows us to communicate with the rest of the world.

To conclude, I think we can all agree that advertising agencies and companies are responsible for the advertisements and campaigns that they put out. At the same time, I think it’s important for us to understand that companies should be able to choose what advertisements they put out. Yes, advertisements can hurt people and the general public. But some companies might utilize this exact fact to create campaigns that interest the general public. Some companies use things like sex, nudity, graphic material, etc. just to get people talking about their ads. While this does seem like a cheap tactic, it is an approach that companies will have to decide if they want to take and if the potential harm outweighs the potential benefits.