An Empirical Investigation on the Impact of Ethical Advertising on Building a Positive Brand Image (With Special Reference to Food and Beverage Industry)
Keywords:
Ethical advertising, brand, food & beverage industryAbstract
In the field of marketing, branding has been around for centuries as a means to distinguish the goods of one producer from those of another. In building brands, there are many factors which contribute. Integrated communication plays a key role among them in this regard. Advertising is the main component of the integrated force which falls into criticisms always. Why it falls into criticisms always? Because, in the present context, public is more concerned about how business activities are done. Public do concern about the ethical aspects of the business activities. Therefore, this empirical research study attempted to search the impact of ethical advertising on building a positive brand image for food and beverages (With special reference to food and beverage in Sri Lanka).
For the research study 08 objectives and 06 hypotheses were formulated. All hypotheses were proved and they say that there are positive relationships between Legality, decency, Honesty, Truthfulness and Social Responsibility of an advertisement and positive brand image of food and beverage. And further, the research proved that there is a positive relationship between occupation and legality of an advertisement and there is positive relationship between occupation and decency of an advertisement. Further, results indicated that there is a strong positive perception regarding ethical advertising. Further to state, it could be concluded that respondents who are the viewers of advertisements are highly concerned about ethics of advertising though there is no proper framework to monitor ethics in advertising in the country.
References
Alter, J., (1982,) "A Delicate Balance: Not Everything Goes in the Marketing of Unmentionables", Advertising Age, 12 July, M3-M8
Bovee Courtland L., John V. Thill and George P. Dovel, (1992), Advertising Excellence, McGraw-Hill, New York
Dzurgba, A., (2000), Principles of Ethics_Ibadan, Agape publications
Fahy, John, Denise Smart, William Pride and O.C. Ferrell, (1995) "Advertising Sensitive Products", International Journal of Advertising, Vol.14, pp231-243.
Ifemesia, B. 1985, Moral Revolution in Africa_Enugu: Holmes Weber Publishing Company
Katsanis, L.P., (1994), "Do Unmentionable Products Still Exist? An Empirical Investigation", Journal of Product and Brand Management, 3 (4), 5-14
Kehinde, A.J., (2005), Truthfulness as a Factor in the Language of Advertising, International Journal of African, Vol. 4
Preston, C., (2005), “Advertising to Children and Social Responsibility”, Journal of Young Consumers, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 61-67
Rehman, S.N. and J.R. Brooks, 1987, "Attitudes Towards Television Advertising for
Controversial Products (2007)", Journal of Healthcare Marketing, Vol.7, 78-83
Schuster, Camille P. and Christine Pacelli Powell, (1987), “Comparison of Cigarette and Alcohol Advertising Controversies”, Journal of Advertising, Vol.16 (2), 26-33.
Shao, Alan T., (1993), "Restrictions on Advertising Items That May Not Be Considered
`Decent': A European Viewpoint", (2003),Journal of Euromarketing, 2 (3), 23-43
Shao, Alan T. and John S. Hill, ()1994a, "Global Television Advertising restrictions: The Case of Socially Sensitive Products", International Journal of Advertising, Vol.13, 347-366.
Shao, Alan T. and John S. Hill, 1994b, "Advertising Sensitive Products in Magazines: Legal and Social Restrictions", Multinational Business Review, Fall, 16-24.
Triff, M., D. Benningfield and J.H. Murphy, 1987, "Advertising Ethics: A Study of Public Attitudes and Perceptions", The Proceedings of the 1987 Conference of the American Academy of Advertising, Columbia, South Carolina
Waller,D.S., 2004, “What factors make controversial advertising offensive?”, School of Marketing, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Waller, D.S., 1999, Attitudes Towards Offensive Advertising, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp.288-294
Wells.B, Spinks. N, 1996, Ethics must be communicated from the top down, Journal of Career Development International, Vol.12, pp28-30
Wilson, A. and West, C., 1981, “The Marketing of unmentionables”, Harvard Business Review, Vol 15, January/February, pp 91- 102
Wilson, A. and West, C., 1995 “A Proposed Response Model For Controversial Advertising”, Journal of Promotion Management, Vol 10 No1, pp 21-32
