Advertising Ethics as Part of International Communication

Introduction

Advertising is an important element in business.  Advertising is an attempt by a business to be able to communicate their product, either in the form of goods or services to consumers through a variety of interesting visual and video content and aims to make the general public know about the product and use the product or service.  Currently, there are many advertisements spread across various countries in the world with various types and variants of each, there is what is called online advertising where these advertisements are displayed through online media such as social media, YouTube, and so on.  There are also advertisements broadcast on television or advertisements shown on billboards or other conventional media. 

In advertising, of course, every company hopes that their products or services can be recognized by the public and produce a good impact, namely products can be sold and have value in the eyes of society, but often many companies and advertisers forget an important element when they advertise a product or service, namely advertising ethics, advertising ethics is one of the important elements when creating and disseminating advertisements.

Advertising ethics itself is a series of rules or regulations that must be obeyed when you want to advertise a product or item, this advertising ethics includes good or bad things that should and should not be done so that they are included in an advertisement, a good advertisement, of course, must meet the rules of advertising ethics if an advertisement violates advertising ethics then the advertisement can be said to be unethical. Simply put, advertisements will definitely ignore information that if conveyed to viewers will actually make viewers not interested in becoming consumers of their products or services.

Advertising has 2 (two) functions, namely the informative function and the persuasive function. But in reality, there is no advertisement that is purely informative and no advertisement is solely persuasive. Ads about new products usually have strong information. For example about tourist places and advertisements about food prices in supermarkets. Whereas advertisements about products with many brands will have a more prominent persuasive element, such as advertisements about branded clothes and houses (Bertens, 2000: 265). ethics in advertising. The three principles are:

(1) The Principle of Honesty: The principle of honesty relates to the fact that the language of advertisement symbols is often exaggerated so that instead of presenting information about the supply of goods and services needed by consumers, it affects and even creates new needs. So what is emphasized here is that the content of advertisements that are communicated must truly state the true reality of the production of goods and services. While what is being avoided here, as a logical consequence is manipulation attempts with any motive whatsoever

(2) The Principle of Human Dignity: a Person That advertisements should respect human dignity as a person is increasingly emphasized today as a kind of imperative requirement. Advertisements should respect the rights and responsibilities of everyone in choosing responsibly the goods and services they need, this relates to the dimensions of the services offered (lust), the pride that having certain goods and services determines social status in society, and so on.

(3) Advertising and social responsibility: Manipulation through advertising or in any way is an unethical act. There are 2 (two) ways to manipulate people with advertising:

a. Subliminal advertising The meaning is an advertising technique that at first glance conveys a message so quickly, that it is not consciously perceived, but stays below the threshold of awareness. This technique can be used in both visual and audio fields (Bertens, 2000: 273) b. Advertisements aimed at children should also be considered unethical because children are easily manipulated and made fun of. Advertisements aimed directly at children cannot be judged other than manipulation and therefore must be rejected as unethical.

Discussion

The object of advertising is indeed different from one another, therefore, advertising communications differ from one another according to the object and purpose of the advertisement itself. Advertisements can aim to educate, and introduce a product to increase insight into the product. Advertising aims to create a positive image of a product. is a form of violation In general there are three objectives to be achieved by companies with advertising communications, namely: