Our Relationship with advertising....

After recently watching the movie The Greatest Movie Ever Sold which has to deal with advertising I started to rethink some of my own relationships with advertisers.

How often do you think about advertising? My guess is probably not a lot. However, I would assume that we all understand that advertising is essential to businesses and that companies do whatever they can to be successful when they advertise. Sometimes that may be by paying a large sum of money to have your brand be the car a celebrity drives in a movie like Aston Martin in James Bond or it could be to have your drink be the only drink in a movie for example Heineken partnered with the James Bond franchise and made a whole ad campaign for the movie Casino Royale and at the same time were able to use those ads as advertisements for their beer. I can tell you that the advertisements that Heineken made using the bond movie Casino Royale has over 1 million combined views on YouTube.

With all that adverting sales for Heineken went up in the US. But the movie Casino Royale and the James Bond franchise has a relatively vast audience in age range. While there is an issue with the potential ability of people under age being influenced by their advertisements. While this could lead to legal trouble the more concerning issue for Heineken would be the potential legal trouble it could lead too. At the same time, I’m sure that Heineken makes sure they follow all legal requirements, what they need to consider at the same time is the ethical consequences and ethical requirements they have. One of the examples of the legal requirements is when in drinking advertisements companies say 21 and older. While it’s important to realize that the alcohol industry is heavily regulated and so is the advertising that comes with it.

People make the argument that addictive things such as alcohol and Tabaco should be outlawed from advertisement I don’t believe this should be the case. I believe that there should be some regulation on these types of products. At the same time these companies that promote these products really consider the ethical responsibilities that are required when advertising their products. One example of this is how Heineken uses a portion of the sales they make to help the environment. Heineken also has a whole section of their company that makes sure that they follow their ethical guidelines and principles which make sure they don’t appeal to underage people primarily along with making sure that they provide an outlet for people who may be alcoholics to reach out to get help they also set aside time in their advertisements to highlight this.

While people might have a controversial opinion of advertising and how companies that produce products that people can be addicted to should be heavily regulated and restricted from advertising that isn’t the case. The responsibility relies within the company that is producing the product and the advertisement, they need to ethically and legally aware of the message they are putting out. By doing this it will allow the consumer to decide if they want to purchase the product. I think we all have run into times where advertisements have swayed us in the direction of purchasing a product, so next time you go to purchase something or see an advertisement take a second to stop and think about if you have been influenced by advertising.