Cheating on your brands! Infidelity in Advertising

 image sourced from:www.shesocreative.com/blog

When it comes to advertising, people generally tend to place blame and point fingers at marketing/advertising companies. Consumers have high expectations of these companies to be the moral parent. So, when adverts pop up that may be risky or intentionally a little offensive to grab some attention, the general public finds it easier to place blame elsewhere as compared to filtering out what they believe to be appropriate or not. 

So the obvious questions to ask ourselves. Should brands be praising the moral standards of being unfaithful to your commonly used brands by cheating with another? Does this mean the brand supports or promotes the idea of infidelity or is simply using a context in which everyone is familiar with, regardless of the fact that it might just be within poor taste. 

On a personal level, I feel that people have the choice to ignore the ads that they disapprove of. We as people, have that choose, and have that right. It can be a little hard to justify knowing that we are bombarded with thousands of advertisements daily. It is still my belief that we control what we buy into. Now that we've established this, I do feel that it doesn't mean advertising companies can fill every ad with suggestive material just because infidelity is so common in our society. It comes down to a moral judgment call. 

A good example of this is AshleyMadison.com. This company promotes infidelity by saying people will do it regardless. They believe that they simply just give it a home. Their slogan says it all "Life is Short, Have an Affair". This is something that exists, but it doesn't exist in my world, I choose to not associate with. Point being, people have the choice to take part in whatever they choose. 

The company choosing to use this tactic doesn't necessarily hold these sleazy values, but has a primary target. Everybody knows sex sells, and it's a fact! Advertising companies use this to relay a message in a way that everyone will get. Poor taste? maybe, but it works and that is exactly what a company strives for. 

All in all, I feel there is no right answer. We live in a society of free speech, and advertiment agencies can really push the boundaries as far as they'd like. Even if it backfires and the pull the ad. True is, it is just the world we live in.