Innovations in advertising, such as sponsored social media posts and advertisers’ ability to track consumers’ online activity, pose new ethical considerations for advertising professionals at a time when consumer trust in the industry wanes. Although ethics courses are not required in most advertising programs, ethics curricula can better prepare students for today's dynamic advertising industry. However, adding more content to existing courses is challenging, as advertising educators are already pressed to incorporate new content related to emerging digital technologies. The Ethical Explainer Project, structured using the explainer genre and experiential learning theory was designed to integrate ethics in undergraduate advertising courses. The project meets student learning outcomes related to competencies relevant to advertising – research readiness, collaboration and creating persuasive messages using digital technologies – while simultaneously fostering students’ ethical cognizance.
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