Associative advertising outline

Introduction

Hook: In 1991, a man sued the company that owns Bud Lite for misleading advertisements. In the advertisement, Bud Lite was “shown to be the source of fantasies coming to life, involving otherwise impossible manifestations of scenic tropical settings, beautiful women and men engaged in endless and unrestricted merriment”. He argued the advertisements were deceptive because “it falsely suggests that [the beer] was the source of fantasies come to life”. The case was ultimately dismissed on the grounds that puffery does not count as fraud. Although it didn’t rise to the level of actionable fraud, one might still argue such associative advertising is deceptive to the public and violates human autonomy. Robert Arrington and Roger Crisp have both written on the subject of advertising and human autonomy.

Thesis: Arrington argues that advertising does not violate human autonomy. Crisp refutes Arrington’s arguments and the flaws in Arrington’s arguments lead me to side with Crisp on this issue.

Statement of organization: In this essay, I critically examine Arrington and Crisp’s opposing views and I further refute some of Arrington’s arguments.

Body

Arrington thinks advertising only allows people to act on their existing desires

1. Arrington addresses 4 pillars of human autonomy: autonomous desire, rational desire, free choice, and control & manipulation.
2. Autonomy has not been violated because advertising only works on existing other desires. A person who has an induced desire but does not disown it is because they recognize the the first order desire.
3. Rational choice is not violated because ads provide relevant information which people base their choice off of. Relevancy is subjective, and people ignore irrelevant information. Also people don’t expect the literal benefits of assoc. advertising.
4. Arrington argues that free choice is not violated by comparing it to its opposite: compulsion. A person is compelled to do something if he does it against his better judgement. A person is not compelled to do something if he has a reason for it, or does not decide to do otherwise.
5. Arrington address the issue of control and manipulation by comparing teaching to brainwashing. A teacher presents information to students, who accept the information by choice.

Crisp argues that advertising removes rational choice by causing people to act on their unconscious desires

1. Crisp refutes each of Arrington’s claims.
2. Autonomous desire, counter to Arrington’s claims, would still be interfered with despite a person acting upon their induced desire after learning of its origins. The difference is that a person would then resent the inducer of the desire. Humans have a second order desire not to have their desires manipulated by others.
3. A desire is rational if, when presented with their reasoning for making a decision, a person would come to the same conclusion. Most associative advertising fails this test, because most people would not agree that “I should buy this because it has been presented in a way that subconsciously evokes my desire for connection”. Crisp argues the very purpose of associative advertising is to bypass rational choice.
4. Crisp refutes Arrington’s argument about free choice because it relies on post-justification. He makes the argument that just because you’re able to link the induced desire back to an existing desire after the fact, does not make it a free choice. Also, just because a person might be aware of their unconscious desires yet chooses not to act against them, does not necessarily mean they were acting freely. “Unconscious is not obedient to the conscious”.
5. Crisp refutes Arrington’s premise on control and manipulation by showing its counter-intuitive conclusions. A person exerts control or manipulation on another if they cause them to act for reasons that the other person would not find to be compelling on their own. Advertising can prey on existing desires that a person would not otherwise wish to act on, e.g. liquor ad. next to rehab centre.

I side with crisp. arrington’s arguments are full of logical fallacies.

1. After reading and examining the work of both Arrington and Crisp, I side with Crisp on the issue of human autonomy.
2. Arrington’s arguments include flawed premises that set the bar for a violation of human autonomy too high. Crisp points this out by showing violations of human autonomy that do not meet the high bar of compulsion set by Arrington.
3. My biggest gripe with Arrington’s arguments are that they often commit logical fallacies.
4. For example, he argues that proof that advertising genuinely fulfills peoples true desires is that people buy them. And if it didn’t people wouldn’t buy them and the company would go out of business. This is a circular argument that assumes people are buying them because it fulfills them.
5. In another example, he argues that the presence of advertising informs people of the validity of its claims because if it didn’t, people wouldn’t keep buying it and the company would go out of business. This is another circular argument because it concludes that an ad exists because people buy it, and people should by it because the ad exists. Also popularity bias. Also non-sequitur because people buying it doesn’t mean that the ad’s claims are valid.
6. Both authors seem to miss an obvious part of the day-to-day human experience. People get tired, or stressed, or experience decision fatigue. Human rationality is not always at full strength. Human reasoning is subject to bias.
7. Associative advertising, as well as many other forms of non-informative advertising, preys upon weaknesses in human rationality.
8. Arrington’s argument about advertising being akin to teaching misses the issue of conflicted interest. A teacher is educating students because he wants them to benefit from the information. An advertiser conveys information to a person because he wants them to buy his product. The advertiser can be seen as manipulative, whereas the teacher would not.

Conclusion

1. To conclude this essay, I will first briefly summarize Arrington and Crisps main arguments.
2. Arrington argues that associative advertising merely allows people to act on their existing desires. Since the advertisement did not create the desire it ties its product to, it cannot be said to violate human autonomy.
3. Crisp argues that associative advertising seeks to bypass human rationality by appealing to unconscious desires. Because its purpose is to cause people to make decisions without regard to or against their rational judgement, it violates human autonomy.
4. Both authors would agree that associative advertising at least sometimes violates human autonomy. [cite Arrington]
5. As I noted earlier, I side with Crisp. I find that the very purpose of associative advertising is to override rational choice. The stronger the associative advertising, the more it attempts to override rational choice. The argument that it’s not manipulative because it conveys information akin to a teacher with his students cannot be raised in its defence, because the advertiser has an interest only in making sales.
6. Left out of this discussion, and certainly out of scope of this essay, is the question of law and regulation. As it often does, the regulators and law-makers will seek to find a middle ground. I am not advocating for any particular law or policy. As Arrington points out, commerce takes liberties from art, and associative advertising can make products more enjoyable and fulfilling. I would not want laws aimed to prevent all forms of associative advertising, lest it also restrict the world of art or the liberties of the individual to find fulfillment in shopping.
7. In this paper, I argued that associative advertising violates human autonomy. But so do many other things that ultimately make life more enjoyable. I leave it up to others to decide when associative advertising crosses the line into predatory, and how much violation of human autonomy in the name of commerce should be acceptable in society.

References

1. Arrington, R. L. (1982). Advertising and behavior control. Journal of Business Ethics, 1(1), 3–12. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25071301
2. Crisp, R. (1987). Persuasive advertising, autonomy, and the creation of desire. Journal of Business Ethics, 6(5), 413–418. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25071678