Advertising Ethics and Subliminal Advertising

Presented by Denise White

Project Checklist

Project Time Line: 2 weeks

Materials: Internet

MS PowerPoint

Color Printer

Advertising Textbook: Arens, William F., Contemporary Advertising, 6th Edition, Irwin: Chicago, 1996

 

Computer Rules: Follow all computer room rules previously discussed by your teacher, posted on the wall, and outlined in the student handbook. Two things to keep in mind:

    1. There are many of you and only one of me, please refer to your notes, ask your neighbor or raise your hand and be patient!!!
    2. If you think you are doing something I wouldn’t approve of, your probably right, so follow your conscious and stop it!!

Project Guideline: This two-part lesson will incorporate cooperative and individual learning, research and creativity to present the topics of social responsibility and ethics in advertising. I suggest saving these web site addresses to a folder on the f: for students to access and click on or copy and paste. It would be difficult to write these lengthy addresses on the board and type them in.

Goals:

    1. To discuss the similarities and differences between ethics and law.

      2. (CCCS 3.1.1, 3.1.4, 3.1.8, 3.1.15) (CrCS 3.1,3.3,3.10,3.13, 4.9)

    2. To apply the Advertising Code of Ethics to new and existing ads.

      3. (CCCS 3.1.1,3.1.4, 3.1.6,3.1.15, 3.1.16, 3.1.20) (CrCS 2.3, 2.5, 2.7, 4.9)

    3. To debate questionable advertisements.

      4. (CCCS 3.1.1,3.1.4, 3.1.6,3.1.15, 3.1.16, 3.1.20) (CrCS 2.3, 2.5, 2.7, 2.8,2.9, 4.2, 4.9)

    4. To examine subliminal advertising and its effects on consumers.

      5. (CCCS 3.1.1,3.1.4, 3.1.6,3.1.15, 3.1.16, 3.1.20) (CrCS 2.3, 2.5, 2.7, 2.8,2.9, 4.2, 4.9)

    5. To have students look at advertisements critically.

(CCCS 3.1.1, 3.4.6, 3.5.2, 3.5.4, 3.5.15) (CrCS 3.2, 4.9)

Main Activities: I suggest starting out with Activity #1, then #4, #2, and #3. The last activity (#4 – Subliminal Advertising) should be due last so that students can use down time (absent partner, broken machine, finishing another section early, etc.) to work on it.

    1. Textbook "Ethical Issues" and "Ad-Labs" (2-3 days)

      2. We will do these together as a class or in small groups, vary your technique depending upon your class’ personality.

      Ethical Issues for class review and discussion on pages 20, 44, 141, 185, 233, 267, 281, and 379.

      Ad-Labs: 2-A Page 44

      2-B Page 58

      2-C Page 62

    2. Issues in advertising, chose one and take a stand (1-2 days)

      3. Have students go to: http://www.hivdent.org/publicp/ppsafneppd0798.htm

      Students should read and be ready to discuss.

      Have them move their seats to one of three areas in the room: AGREE, DISAGREE, UNDECIDED. Give them 10 minutes to chose a spokesperson and come up with reasons for their position. UNDECIDED will go last.

      The issues at the web site below are listed in date order from 2000 back to 1981. I suggest dividing the class in half; have half do the 80’s and the other half do the 90’s. On their own, students should choose one that they feel strongly about. Allow the class 20 minutes to browse, choose and prepare their argument. Students should be ready to answer questions.

      http://advertising.utexas.edu/research/law/recent.html - Recent Ethical and Legal Advertising Issues

    3. To review Supreme Court cases related to advertisements (2-3 days)

Individually have students got to: http://advertising.utexas.edu/research/law/index.html and read the Ethics and 1st Amendment sections to themselves (HINT: tell them to take notes on commercial speech!!!)

In pairs, go to

http://advertising.utexas.edu/research/biblio/SupCases.html

Assign one of the 16 cases to each group.

They will have until the end of the period the following day to read this case and create a brief slide show to present to the class. The slide show should state the parties involved, issue(s), arguments and decision. Remind students to save work not only to their p: but to your f: tempstore as well.

They can go to other sites to help them out as well, some suggestions:

http://www.bbb.org/advertising/adcode.asp

http://www.arentfox.com/quickGuide/businessLines/advert/advertisingLaw/adLawLawsRegs/adlawlawsregs.html

 

4. To create our own subliminal advertisements (2 days/concurrent with group work)

We will have a class discussion on what subliminal advertising is.

In groups of 3, assign a site to each group (I would photocopy the addresses, cut them apart and give one to each of the groups). They should all log in and visit the site. Together they should create a list of 5 interesting facts/observations that they learned from the site. The groups that are visiting sites with built in examples should pick the best one to share with the class. You have 30 minutes to do your research.

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V110/N7/lsc.07n.html - Effects of subliminal advertising

http://www.cgjungpage.org/films/contact.html - Subliminal Messages in Movies

http://www.buchenroth.com/thesis3.html#examples - Examples and Analysis

http://www.poleshift.org/sublim/index.html - Examples with Levels

http://komar.cs.stthomas.edu/qm425/fisher3.htm - Messages Alive and Well

http://www.banzai.net/sublime/about.html - Questionable Subliminal

http://www.carleton.ca/~gfrajkor/zine98/group2/smiltnie.html - Have You Been Bought?

Plan on giving the students 2 days to share what they have found and explore other sites related to subliminal advertising. (Most classes enjoy looking for the subliminal messages in the advertisements, so give them the opportunity to explore.)

While working on the ethics/law group work, they should simultaneously be creating their own, individual subliminal advertisement. They can use an existing product but must cleverly embed a message or idea in their advertisement. (Their names should go on back, not the front)

Assessments: As always students will be graded on efficient use of class time, equal distribution of work, meeting project requirements, and ability to demonstrate improvement since last graded activity.

1. Individual Class work Grade #1: Chapter 2 Questions

2. Individual Class work Grade #2: Take a stand on an issue

3. Partner Project Grade #1: Court Decisions Presentation

4. Individual Project Grade #1: Subliminal Advertisement

EXTRA CREDIT:
    1. I offer extra credit points to students that are able to locate an authentic paper advertisement that they find a subliminal message in.
    2. Create a bulletin board with their advertisements from #4. Have another class vote on what they think is the best and award extra credit accordingly.

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