Research on Advertising Ethics: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

Research on advertising ethics, as revealed by a search of the ABI/Inform database, shows that advertising ethics has been, and continues to be, a mainstream topic in advertising research. Present beliefs about such research, as expressed by a random sample of academicians in the American Academy of Advertising, include the belief that practitioners are uninterested in ethics research. Beliefs about the future of such research, as forecast by the same academicians, include the need for better measures related to ethics. Other promising research topics are use of deception, advertising to children, ads for legal vices, negative political ads, and stereotyping in ads.