Measuring the Correlation between Ethical Dimensions of
Advertisement and Development of Society
Syed Karamatullah Hussainy
Associate Professor and Dean, Khadim Ali Shah Bukhari
Institute of Technology
Syed Luqman Hakim
Assistant Professor, Hamdard Institute of Management
Sciences Hamdard University
Muhammad Adil Khan
Research Associate
Abstract
Around the world, the advertising industry has
contributed many job opportunities and it creates
employment for millions of people. At the same time, the
messages of products, which are communicated through
advertising mediums have affected the behaviors of vast
number of customers. Advertisers in the contemporary
world spend more than three hundred and fifty billion
dollars per year and this figure is increasing by the
passage of time. According to a researcher advertisers
generally use advertising to communicate the merits of
their specific brands in order to increase the
acceptability or purchase of their promoted product
although some advertising messages are designed to
communicate messages through which moral or ethical
behaviors are intended to be modified. Advertising
serves many economic and social objectives but the flip
side of advertising is that it influences behaviors of
its viewers that may not be ethically appropriate. It
may induce materialism and individualism among its
audience. This research is an attempt to investigate the
relationship of advertisement with culture values,
promotion of individualism and materialistic behavior.
The paper attempts to investigate into the ethical
dimension of advertising. For conducting primary
research a sample of 350 respondents was selected and
the data was statistically tested though chi-square
model.
Keywords: Advertising, roles of
advertising, moral values, ethical values, cultural
impact, social impact, materialistic culture and
selfishness.
JEL Classification: M14, M37
