BEING ETHICAL WHEN ADVERTISIGN, WHAT IS THE LIMIT?

In Australia there is no limitation for the contents of the advertisement. The only limit is given by the products that can or can’t be sold. For example, therapeutic goods can only be sold if they are permitted and certified by the therapeutic act, a law that regulates this kind of products.

In the first place, advertisers sometimes exceed this limit, and try to sell something using wrong information on their ads. Ingenuous people can be forced to buy things that are useless or that are not as good as the advertiser promised. This must be prohibited by the government in any country, because it is a form of robbing people.

Besides, there also should be a limit in the content of the ads when it comes to sex or violence. Anything can be seen by adults, who have their own opinion and are responsible for their acts. But for children, this should be regulated. This is very hard to accomplish, but it’s not impossible if parents take charge of it. Recently, Australian government created a law that stated that web pages should vary their contents and have a different “harmless” version for schools.

I think, as long as people are respected, there should be no limitation for advertisers to develop their creativity, after all, advertisement is a form of art and should that is something that should be taken in consideration.