To start of with, who decides the difference between being ethical and unethical? For me at least distinguishing one from the other is not as simple as separating black from white, or visa versa. It is really about digging in the different shades of grey and then drawing a line of where the ethics depart from an advertisement.
The 21st century has introduced an age where companies are willing to spend more time on marketing their products than on the product itself. One such example is of Abercrombie and Fitch. The advertisement below is a typical kind of Abercrombie and Fitch ad. It sells sex, nothing more and nothing less! The ad is so distant from its product that you are begged to ask the question, “What is it that they are actually selling?’. Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, mentioned in an interview that, “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes, and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.” With these comments it is certain that Abercrombie and Fitch does not sell clothes. The company on the other hand sells what it believes to be “cool” and only to who it believes fits this image. I believe that a company does not have the right to place tags and generalizations on anyone! Therefore to me the marketing approach adopted by Abercrombie and Fitch is unethical and its advertisements literally misleading!
Works Cited:
Lutz, Ashley. “Abercrombie & Fitch Refuses To Make Clothes For Large Women.”Business Insider. N.p., 3 May 2013. Web. 23 Sept. 2013.