Ethics in indian advertisements: Concepts and regulatory measures Nabi Mohd. Kamalun1,*, Assistant Professor, Panigrahi Rajeshwari2, Associate Professor 1Department of Commerce and Business Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, Central University, New Delhi, India. 2Department of Marketing, GITAM Institute of Management, GITAM University, Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. Email id: Rajeshwari.panigrahi@gmail.com. *Corresponding author Email id: *nabijmi@gmail.com
Abstract Advertisement is a tool to bridge the communication gap between producers and consumers. It evokes “Psychic desire” tending towards market increase in consumption. It significantly influences daily lives of the consumers and all those who are exposed to such ads consciously or sub-consciously. Over a period of time the content of advertisement has gone through various phases of changes. Of late trend has gone beyond just providing product information. There is a cut throat competition in market leading to marketers trying hard to get their market share and as a consequence, they resort to communicating misleading/conceited information to attract customers, termed to be unethical. In the absence of strict regulatory norms in India this sort of unethical practices has increased multifold with majority of the corporate biggies using misleading information to allure customers. Thus, a strong legal mechanism is required to curb and control such unethical practices. Against such a backdrop, this paper examines the various ethical dimensions of advertising in India and the existing regulatory measures. The cases included in the present study reveal that Indian advertisements are more often than not, devoid of unethical practices and thus a strong regulatory measure to curb and control such unethical practices is called for. Top Keywords Advertisement, Ethical Advertising, Psychic desire, Regulatory Measures. Top |