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Is advertising the extreme means to inform and aid us in our each day decision-making or is it just an excessively powerful form of mass deception used by companies to persuade their chances and clients to buy merchandise and services they do not need? Consumers in the international village are exposed to increasing number of publicity messages and spending for advertisements is increasing accordingly. It will not be exaggerated if we conclude that we are ‘soaked in this cultural rain of syndication communications’ through TV, press, cinema, Internet, etc. (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). But if thirty years ago the marketing communication tools were employed principally as a product-centered tactical means, now the promotional mix, and in peculiar the advert is focalized on signs and semiotics. Some argue that the marketers’ attempts ultimately are “turning the economy into symbol so that it means something to the consumer” (Williamson, cited in Anonymous, Marketing Communications, 2006: 569). One critical consequence is that a heap of of the contemporary advertisements “are marketing us ourselves” (ibid.) The abovementioned routine is influenced by the commoditisation of merchandise and blurring of consumer’s own perceptions of the companies’ offering. In order to discern and position their productions and/or services today’s businesses employ advert which is now and again considered not only of bad taste, but also as deliberately irruptive and manipulative. The issue of bad promotion is topical to such extent that organisations like Adbusters have embraced the tactics of subvertising – revealing the real intend behind the innovative advertising. The Adbusters magazine editor-in-chief Kalle Lason commented on the corporate effigy building communicating actions of the huge companies: “We know that oil companies aren’t genuinely friendly to nature, and tobacco companies don’t in truth care with regards to ethics” (Arnold, 2001). On the other hand, the “ethics and social obligation are indispensable determinants of such long-term gains as survival, long-term profitability, and competitiveness of the organization” (Singhapakdi, 1999). Without communications system that revolves around ethics and social obligation the conceptions of total quality and client relationships building become elusive. However, there could be no easy clear-cut ethics formula of syndication communications. ADVERTISING – PRESCIOUS INFORMATION OR VICIOUS MANIPULATION? In order to get perceptivities into the buyer sensing regarding the role of advert we have reviewed a number of articles and conducted four in-depth interviews. A number of exploration papers reach opposed conclusions. These vary from the ones stating that “the ethicality of a firm’s conduct is an primary contemplation for the duration of the buy decision” and that buyers “will reward ethical conduct by a willingness to pay higher prices for that firm’s product” (Creyer and Ross Jr., 1997) to others stressing that “although buyers may express a desire to aid ethical companies, and penalize unethical companies, their actual buy behaviour often times remains unaffected by ethical concerns” and that “price, quality and value outweigh ethical criteria in buyer buy behaviour” (Carrigan and Attalla, 2001). Focusing on the advertizing as the most prominent retail communication tool we have constructed and conducted an consultation consisting of four themes and nine questions. The conceptual frame of this paper is built on these four themes. THEME I. The Ethics in Advertising The basi theme comprises two initial questions with regards to the ethics in advertizing in general. I.A. How would you define the ethics in advertising? The term ethics in business involves “morality, organisational ethics and professional deontology” (Isaac, cited in Bergadaa’, 2007). Every industry has it is own guidelines for the ethical requirements. However, the indispensable four requirements for syndication communications are to be legal, decent, honorable and truthful. Unfortunately, in a society where the course of action of the companies is determined by net income targets the use of marketing communications messages “may constitute a form of social pollution through the potentially detrimental and unintended effects it may have on buyer decision making” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). One of the interviewed respondents stated that “the most successful companies do no need ethics in their activenesses because they have built empires.” Another view is that “sooner or later whoever is not ethical will face the negative consequences.” I.B. What is your sensing of the importance of ethics in advertising? The second question is regarding the importance of being moral when communication with/to your target audiences and the way consumers/customers view it. In dissimilar exploration papers we have found rather opposing conclusions. Ethics of business seems to be evaluated either as very essential in the decision making procedure or as not in truth a severe factor in this process. An example of rather uttermost stance is that “disaster awaits any brand that acts cynically” (Odell, 2007). It may seem evident that the obligation ought to be carried by the advertiser because “his is the key obligation in keeping promotion clean and decent” (Bernstein, 1951). On the other hand the companies’ actions are specified by the “the canons of social obligation and good taste” (ibid.). One of the interviewees said: “The only responsible for giving decent publicity is the one who profits at the end. Company’s profits must not be at the expense of society.” Another one stated that “our culture and the level of societal knowingness determine the good and bad in advertising”. The increased importance of merchandising communications ethics is underscored by the need of applying more dialogical, two-way communications approaches. The “demassification technologies have the potential to facilitate dialogue”, but the “monologic” attitude is still the predominant one (Botan, 1997). Arnold (2001) points out the cases of Monsanto and Esso which had to pay “a price for it is [theirs] one-way communications strategy”. In this train of thought we may review ethics in advertisements from two dissimilar perspectives as suggested by our respondents and dissimilar points of view in the reviewed papers. The primary one is that it is of the utmost importance to have one mutual code of ethics imposed by the law. The other affirms the independence and obligation of each industry for setting it is own standards. THEME II. Which type of regulation ought to be the leading one in the field of advertising? The next theme directs the attention towards the regulation system which will have to be the primary one. Widely accepted opinion is that both self regulation and legal controls ought to work in synergy. In other words the codes of exercise are meant to supplement the laws. However, in sure countries there are more inviolable legal controls over the advertising, e.g. in Scandinavia. On the other hand the industry’s self regulation is preferent in the Anglo-Saxon world. Still, not everyone agrees with the laissez-faire concept. One of our respondents said: “I believe governments ought to impose stricter legal frame and harsher punishment for companies which do not comply with the law.” Needless to say, the social acceptability varies from one culture/country to another. At the end of the day “good taste or bad is for the most part a matter of the time, the place, and the individual” (Bernstein, 1951). It would be likewise in all probability out of the question to set clear-cut elaborated rules in the era of Internet and interactional TV. Therefore, both types of regulation must be employed with the uttermost intention of reaching remainder amid the sacred right of freedom of choice and info and minimizing possible widespread offence. Put differently, the goal is synchronising the “different ethical frameworks” of vendors and “others in society” in order to fill the “ethics gap” (Hunt and Vitell, 2006). THEME III. Content of Advertisements. Probably the most arguable issue in the field of syndication communications is the content of advertisements. Nwachukwu et al. (1997) distinguish three areas of interest in terms of ethical judgment of ads: “individual autonomy, buyer sovereignty, and the nature of the product”. The person autonomy is concerned with advertizing to children. Consumer sovereignty deals with the level of noesis and sophistication of the target audience whereas the ads for destructive productions are in the centre of public opinion for a long time. We have added two more perspectives to arrive at five questions in the conducted interviews. The primary one worries the advert that infer sense of guilt feelings and praise affluence that in the most cases cannot be achieved and the second one is in regards to advertisements stimulating desire and gratification through acquisition of material goods. III.A. What is your attitude towards the advert of destructive products? A typical example is the advertising of cigarettes. Nowadays we cannot see slogans like “Camel Agrees with Your Throat” (Chickenhead, accessed 25th September 2007) or “Chesterfield – Packs More Pleasure – Because It’s More Perfectly Packed!” (Chickenhead, accessed 25th September 2007). The frequent advertisement, sponsorship and other marketing communications means are already prohibited to be used by cigarette producers. Surprisingly, most of the answers of the respondents were not versus the cigarettes advertisement. One of the respondents said: “People are well informed when it comes to the aftermaths of smoking so it is a matter of personal choice.” As with a heap of other contemporary merchandise the shift in communications messages for cigarettes is oriented towards symbol and effigy building. The same may be said for the alcohol ads. A well-known example of aroused promotion is the Absolut Vodka campaign. From Absolut Nectar, through Absolut Fantasy to Absolut World the Swedish drink in truth aims to be Absolut… Everything. Advertising of hazardous productions is even more harshly criticised when it is purposed at audiences with low person autonomy, i.e. children. Two main issues in this respect are the manipulation of cigarettes and alcohol as “the rite of passage into adulthood” and the fact that “sales of health-hazardous merchandise (alcohol, cigarettes) create freely without much disapproval” (Bergadaa, 2007). III.B. What is your attitude towards the advert to children? Children are not only customers, but likewise consumers, influencers and users in the family Decision-Making Unit (DMU). Additional difficultness is that they are too impressionable to be deciders in the DMU. At the same time it is not a mystery that vendors utilise “the same basic scheme of attempting to trade the parent through the child’s insistence on the purchase” (Bernstein, 1951). It is not a surprise then that “spending on publicity for children has increased five-fold in the last ten years and two thirds of commercials for the duration of child television programs are for feed products” (Bergadaa 2007). In the US alone children represent a direct purchases market of $24 billion worth (McNeal cited in Bergadaa, 2007) which surely is on the top of the agendas of a heap of companies. While exploiting children’s decision-making immaturity advertisers oftentimes go too far in dematerialising their merchandise and “teleporting children out of the tangible and into the virtual world of brand names” (Bergadaa 2007). Teenage virtual worlds like Habbo where snack feed brands run advert campaigns are already a fact of life (Goldie, 2007). The imaginative worlds are popular not only online. Hugely successful for creating a fantasy world is Mc Donald’s. The company tops the European list of kids’ advertisers while more than half of the children’s adverts are for junk food. In a lot of countries there are harsher limitations to the children advertising. • “Sweden and Norway do not permit any television promotion to be directed towards children underneath 12 and no adverts at all are permitted for the duration of children’s programmes. According to a exploration by Roberts and Pettigrew (2007) the most frequent themes in children advertising are “grazing, the denigration of core foods, exaggerated health claims, and the implied capacity of sure foods to heighten popularity, performance and mood.” But the junk feed is not the only reason for parents’ preoccupation. According to a study of Kaiser Family Foundation (Dolliver, 2007) parents are concerned with regards to the amount of publicity of the following merchandise (in order of importance): toys, video games, clothing, alcohol/beer, movies, etc. The interviewed respondents were unanimous: “The advert to children will have to be rigorously monitored.” Similar results were received in surveys by Rasmussen Reports and Kaiser Family Foundation. Nevertheless, the legal means are just one portion of the children’s protection. The other share involves “the decision-making obligation of parents and teachers” which is “to support their children in formulating a skeptical attitude to the info in advertising” (Bergadaa 2007). The marketers themselves ought to also be involved in shaping the moral scheme of our future and “each brand will have to have it is own deontology – a code of exercise when it comes to children – rather than rely on industry codes” (Horgan, 2007). III.C. Do you think there are numerous misleading, exaggerating and mixing up advertisements. Are some ads promising things that are not possible to achieve? It will not be exaggerated to state that advertizing is in a sense “salesmanship addressed to masses of potential buyers rather than to one buyer at a time” (Bernstein, 1951). Since “salesmanship itself is persuasion” (ibid.) we cannot plainly blame advertisers for carrying out or participate in their sales goals. However, in the last twenty years or so advertisers have progressively applied semiotics in their messages and as a consequence ads have started out to function more and more as symbols. One uttermost case in this stream of promotion is the creation of idealised effigy of a person who uses the advertised product. Bishop (2000) draws our attention to two “typical representatives of self-identity effigy ads” which entice buyers to project the respective images to themselves through use of the products: - “The Beautiful Woman”; Through setting of such stereotypes advertisers not only mislead the public and hyperbolize the effects of merchandise but also provoke low self-esteem in consumers. At the same time they promise results that in most cases are plainly out of the question to achieve. Instead of furthering “‘glamorous’ anorexic body images” communication messages will have to use “varied body types” and must drop the idea of the “impossible physical body images” (Bishop, 2000). To question III.C one of the respondents commented: “The clients of these merchandise [the ones advertised through thin models] are for the most part people who do not have the same physical characteristic. For me, this type of advert is measuredly purposed at people to make them feel not complete, far from beautiful social outsiders.” However, another interviewed stated that: “every person has his own way of assessing what is believable and what is misleading. Consumers are sufficient sophisticated to know what is exaggerated.” Similarly, Bishop (2000) concludes that “image ads are not untrue or misleading”, and “whether or not they advocate untrue values is a matter for subjective reflection.” The author argues that effigy ads do not interfere with our internal autonomy and if humans are misled, it is because they want it. It is all with regards to our free choice of behaviour and no publicity may alter our desires. Perhaps, the truth lies someplace in-between the two uttermost positions. III.D. What is your attitude towards advertizing that infer sense of guilt, and praise affluence that in the most cases can not be achieved? A more specific case of disputable advert is the one applied to “promote not so much self indulgence as self doubt”; the one that “seeks to invent needs, not to fulfill them: to generate new anxieties rather of allaying old ones” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). A response of our interviewee reads: “It is not only a matter of advertising. It has to do with the social inequality and the desire to possess what you may not.” Hackley and Kitchen (1999) refer to this discrepancy as to “when reality does not match the effigy of affluence and the result is a subjective sentiment of dissonance”. The issue could be elaborate further through the next question. III.E. Are advertisements stimulating desire and gratification through acquisition of material goods moral? We live in a society which is more or less marked by materialism. Advertisements are oftentimes blamed to fuel consumption which is allegedly leading to happiness. The role of advancing gratification through acquisition of material goods has become so indispensable that presently the “media merchandise are characterised by relativism, irony, self referentiality and hedonism” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). Is the general saying “those who die with most toys win” in truth a motivator in consumers’ conduct and could consumption be the heal of aroused dissonance? This seems to be the case provided a brand succeeds to enter in the evoked set of buyer choices. This new “kind of materialism” goes hand in hand with “the emergence of individualism thru sheer hedonism along with narcissism and selfishness” (Bergadaa 2007). THEME IV. Is the amount of advertisements justified? IV.A. Do you think there is too much advertising? An audit of feed publicity purposed at children in Australia by Roberts and Pettigrew (2007) revealed that “28.5 hours of children’s television programming sampled contained 950 advertisements.” Actually, we all are being bombarded by ads on TV, Internet, print media, etc. The amount and content of selling communications messages puts the consumer’s selective information processing capacity to a test. The exposure to merchandising selective information overload often times leads to diluted consumer’s selective perception. Whether our responses are circumscribed by “confusion, existential despair, and loss of moral identity” or we “adapt constructively to the [communications] Leviathan and become intelligent, cynical, streetwise” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999) is a question open to debate. Two opposite streams of complex mental states were produced in our research. One stance is concerned with the unjustified amount of advertisement. The other stream proclaims that “If there is an advertisement, so it is justified by a need.” We agree that the communications overload may without doubt have “pervasive effect on the social ecology of the developed world” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). If the increasing communication pollution is not managed in the right manner by both legal and industry points of view yet again the promotion will manage “to hoist it is foot to it is own mouth and kick out a couple of it is own front teeth” (Bernstein, 1951). CONCLUSION In preparation of this paper we have used qualitative depth consultations in order to get perceptivities for what actual clients opine. We have likewise substantiated our presentment with references to a number of influential articles in the field of ethics in syndication communications. Generally, our respondents as well as respective writers have taken two opposing stances. The original one affirms that ethics in merchandising communications matters considerably, whereas the other one downsizes the importance of ethics, thereby stressing the role of other components in buyer decision-making, i.e. price, brand loyalty, convenience, etc. Marketers ought to grasp their “responsibility for the emergent portrait of future society” (Bergadaa 2007). Not only there is a need of legal ethical frame but also professional ethical benchmarks and deontology will have to be in place. One of the main challenges is to keep out of the way of creating “a happy client in the short term”, because “in the long run both buyer and society may suffer as a direct result of the marketer’s actions in ‘satisfying’ the consumer” (Carrigan and Attalla, 2001). The strength of the advert influence exerted on buyers is only one percentage of the equation. On the other hand we may affirm that buyers are not morally subservient and according to the selective information routine models there is a natural cognitive defense. The communications tools “offer us a theatre of our own imagination” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). Consequently, we receive the reality in terms of our own experiences. In this sense marketers do not formulate reality – they are plainly a mirror of the society. We may argue that unluckily this is not always the case. Advertising is ofttimes as deserved seen as the embodiment of buyer freedom and choice. Notwithstanding this crucial role, when the choice is “between one candy bar and another, the latest savoury snack or sweetened breakfast cereal or fast feed restaurant” (McSpotlight, accessed 20th September 2007) it represents anything else but not an substitute and surely not a healthful one. 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