The True Worldliness of Advertising

Abstract

The case against advertising is easy to make. In 1994, the Vatican's Pontifical Council on Social Communications published a thoughtful, balanced document on “Ethics in Advertising,” presenting both positive and negative aspects of the practice. The Vatican focused on rational product selection based on a comparison of product qualities. The author, as a practitioner of advertising in the United States, offers an alternative view of advertising as a brand-building, relationship-building enterprise. Advertising can help initiate and sustain healthy commercial exchanges. A career in advertising can be pursued with good conscience when the good internal to the practice of advertising is creating these positive exchanges.