Diverging responsibilities: reflections on

emerging issues of responsibility in the

advertising business
Nando Malmelin

Nando Malmelin is he business of marketing communications has ever increasing economic and cultural
Development Director at
A-lehdet Oy, Helsinki,
A-lehdet, Finland.
T importance. The results of the creative efforts by advertising professional’s receive
exceptional public exposure, and professionals have the power to influence people’s
lives. The debate and discussion on advertising and its ethics, for instance, is also part of the
broader debate in society that contributes to shaping society’s values.
Therefore it is important that we have a proper understanding of the industry. Marketing and
advertising must be analysed as part of broader social phenomena and structures, not just
as tools of selling products. (for more on this, see, e.g. Nixon, 2003; Cronin, 2004;
Drumwright and Murphy, 2004; Szmigin, 2003; Willmott, 2003.)
The debate and discussion on corporate social responsibility has taken off very strongly, and
although marketing professionals (e.g. Vitell et al., 2003) and media professionals (e.g.
Wilenius and Malmelin, 2009) have been studied from these points of view, advertising has
so far received only scant attention (see Maignan et al., 2005). At the Cannes Lions Festival
in June 2007, former US Vice President, Nobel Peace Laureate Al Gore called upon
advertising professionals to take a leading role in tackling global environmental problems.
The advertising community, he said, must harness their creative capabilities to communicate
to audiences around the world about the environmental crisis. Leaders in advertising
agencies are also uniquely placed to raise awareness among business executives and to
highlight the importance of environmental concerns and considerations to the future
development of brand value.
This article is based on an interview study with 15 advertising executives and leading
experts in Finland. The interviews were conducted in December 2006 and January 2007 with
the managers of the five biggest advertising agencies in 2006 as measured in terms of their
sales margin: managing directors and, on their appointment, managers or leading experts
responsible for strategic planning and creative design[1].
A major focus in these interviews was on how the phenomenon of responsible business is
understood in the advertising industry. For instance, the informants were asked to whom they
felt answerable for their actions and how this affected their work.
The decision to interview managers of advertising agencies was motivated by the fact that it
is they who are responsible for the processes of producing marketing communication,
advertisements and other promotional materials. All advertisements are the outcome of
deliberate choices by their creators. Those choices are informed by personal values and
attitudes as well as by principles and visions shared by the professional community in the
workplace. All of this is ultimately the responsibility of company management.
The data were collected in focused interviews where all informants were asked the same
questions, although they had considerable latitude to answer those questions as they saw
fit. The aim was to find out how advertising professionals experience, interpret and value the
social responsibilities of experts and businesses in the advertising industry.

DOI 10.1108/17515631011013104 VOL. 11 NO. 1 2010, pp. 43-53, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1751-5637 j BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES j PAGE 43
 The interview data were analysed and interpreted as a source of information on leading
industry experts’ views and opinions. The advertising executives recruited formed a good
sample of informants since the aim was to find out how responsibility is understood in the
industry. All these people are experienced informants who are well networked and who have
an in-depth knowledge of the debate and discussion going on in the industry.
The data for this research were thus collected in what may be described as elite interviews
with leading experts in society (e.g. Welch et al., 2002). Decision-makers in business and
industry, public administration and politics are such elite groups by virtue of their major
influence on organizational decision-making, on employees and on society more generally.
The themes covered in the interview schedule included the following:
1. How is responsibility and responsible business understood in the advertising industry
and organizations?
2. How is responsibility understood as opposed to irresponsibility?
3. What responsibilities do advertising agencies and designers have, to whom are they
answerable?
4. What are the most critical points of responsibility in the strategies and processes of
marketing communications?
5. How big a challenge is the development of responsible business practices to the
organizations of advertising industry?

Stakeholders at the core of responsible business

The analysis in this article of advertising business is informed by stakeholder thinking. A
company’s stakeholders consist of groups who can sway and influence the company’s
operation or who themselves can be swayed and influenced by the company. In contrast to
traditional ethics theories and approaches, stakeholder theories turn the focus of analysis to
the practical questions of business decision-making and development (e.g. Buchholz and
Rosenthal, 2002; see also Carroll and Buchholtz, 2003, p. 70.)
The development of responsible business practices in the advertising industry is grounded
in the idea that all industry actors contribute to the promotion of responsible business and
show respect towards other stakeholders. In responsible advertising, both the advertising
company and the designers of their advertisements will carefully weigh and try to anticipate
the reactions of different stakeholder groups and their representatives to a planned
advertising campaign. (Polonsky and Hyman, 2007.)
This article identifies different dimensions of responsible business conduct in advertising.
For the purposes of this analysis a distinction is made between economic stakeholders and
cultural stakeholders. In addition, there are institutional stakeholders such as authorities and
other public agencies. Using this scheme, we can study what kind of stakeholders and
related values and interests are involved in the advertising business.
First, economic or business stakeholders are partners that are concretely or contractually
involved in the company’s business operations. In the advertising industry such
partnerships are formed between advertisers and agencies that provide expert services
in marketing and advertising. Other possible partners include communications and media
agencies, production companies, and research and consultancy companies.
Second, cultural stakeholders consist of consumers and various consumer groups and
organizations. Informed and discerning consumers have ever-higher expectations of
transparent, reliable and responsible business conduct.
The calls and demands for responsible business apply increasingly to advertisers,
advertising agencies and advertising designers as well: this is because advertising
campaigns contribute significantly to shaping and steering public debate in society as well
as people’s attitudes and cultural values.

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For instance, there is heated public debate on whether advertising aimed at children should
be regulated, as well as on the impacts of advertising images on the identity construction,
body image and sexuality of young people. Various feminist groups and media researchers,
among others, have referred to the pornofication of advertising.
The focus in this article, then, is to analyse the responsibility of the advertising business, with
special reference to the challenges that lie ahead for the profession. We begin by looking
more closely at the economic and cultural roles of advertising.

The economic role of advertising

Advertising agencies and experts have their own role to play in promoting the business of
their client companies. How, then, do advertising opinion leaders see the role of marketing
communications in business? Which aspects of their clients’ business do they feel they are
responsible for? And what is the role of advertising professionals in creating and shaping the
future of ethical organizations and businesses?
The process of marketing communications and advertising can be analysed into a series of
chains of events: these are the stages of strategic thinking and the planning, production and
distribution of marketing communications. This provides at once a useful illustration of the
evolution and profound changes that have happened in the advertising industry. According
to the experts interviewed, the role of advertising businesses has been extended and
enlarged from producers of advertisements to business management consultants.
Furthermore, many advertising experts feel they have a responsibility to promote their
clients’ marketing and branding know-how more generally. The following looks more closely
at advertising experts’ views on these roles.

Strategic partner
There is an ongoing trend of differentiation in the advertising industry, with the formation of
two types of companies that provide expert services. The business of advertising agencies
consists largely of the design and production of advertisements and other activities of
marketing communication. In other words, these traditional advertising agencies sell
advertisements to their clients.
On the other hand, many advertising agencies have developed a business concept that
leans more heavily towards business management consultancy. Their aim is to achieve a
status of strategic partner with their clients.
Marketing decisions thus have increasingly far-reaching implications for companies’
business operations as well as organizational ethics as a whole. In its capacity as a strategic
advisor, the advertising agency has ongoing dialogue with the management of the client.
Even though representatives of the advertising agency are not directly responsible for the
client’s business success, they do more and more often voice their opinions about other than
purely marketing issues.
These dialogues also provide the occasion for establishing the general guidelines for ethical
and responsible marketing. Indeed many advertising experts believe that these strategic
discussions between advertisers and the advertising agency are one the most important
forums and actions in setting the general course for ethical marketing communications. It is
here that key strategic decisions are made that govern the production of advertising in
practice.
Many advertising experts are keen to emphasize that the responsible advertising agency
must have the daring and courage to question the advertiser’s views, principles and
objectives if it is felt that they are wrong or possibly even detrimental to the client’s business.
This is sharply different from views on the responsibilities of the professional subcontractor,
for instance.
The strategic partner’s role and responsibility is thus to analyse the advertiser’s business not
only from the present but also the future point of view. It is necessary to assess how different

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 actions of marketing communications will affect the company’s brand, and how far this will
be reflected in public perceptions of the company.
Advertising agencies are also experts in the management of risks associated with clients
and consumers. The more the company is in the public limelight, the more attention it needs
to pay to consumers’ views and opinions on responsibility. Every ethical decision made by
the company on its business may impact the value of its brand.

Ambassador of marketing
Many advertising agency directors feel they are also responsible for developing the
advertising industry and enhancing its reputation. It is considered a matter of high priority to
foster excellence and professionalism in the industry.
Likewise, advertising executives feel they have a duty to raise the level of marketing
know-how in their client companies. Many advertising executives considered it one of their
most important tasks to increase the awareness and appreciation among company
managers of the fact that in the current intangible economy, well-managed brands,
marketing and advertising are major competitive assets. They refer to a sense of vocation,
even a social mission to develop and advocate marketing thinking.
Marketing communications and advertising are comparatively new professions and are not
associated with the production of social value added in the same way as the work done by,
say, the medical profession. In strong professions such as medicine, there is a
well-established tradition to foster awareness of the social responsibilities related to
expert authority.
The social rhetoric of opinion leaders in the Finnish advertising industry is grounded in the
idea that the advertising company should also contribute to the growth of the national
economy. There is nothing new about the advertising business adopting this self-proclaimed
status as engine of the national economy; American advertising professionals used to speak
in similar terms as far back as the early twentieth century. Advertising experts like to market
themselves as innovators of the modern age, insisting that their work promotes material and
cultural development in society. (Walker Laird, 1998, p. 6; see also Jackall and Hirota, 2000.)
Opinion leaders in advertising feel they also have a responsibility for the development of the
common economy. Many advertising experts say that successful marketing is a responsible
undertaking in the interest of the whole nation, for it makes it possible for companies to
succeed, grow, create new jobs – and pay more taxes.
Companies with responsible business strategies follow and incorporate the principles of
responsibility in their marketing and corporate branding as well. In this kind of socially
conscious marketing and advertising, the professionals involved take close account of the
needs and expectations of all the various stakeholder groups.

The cultural role of advertising

Advertising professionals are designers and creators of images and meanings. They are a
group of cultural intermediaries: the practices of marketing communication shape and
influence not only the development of companies’ business, but also the public debate in
society as well as consumers’ attitudes and their ascription of meanings (Bourdieu, 1984;
see also, e.g. Featherstone, 1991, pp. 43-7; Richards et al., 2000, pp. 3-4, 244; Cronin, 2000,
pp. 48-9). For this reason advertisers and advertising professionals can also be expected to
show cultural responsibility, a sense that they care about citizens’ everyday life.
Following the principles of responsible business, companies must be able to market their
products and services in such a way that they take account of the expectations not only of
their main target groups, but other stakeholder groups as well. Responsible marketing aims
to achieve the business targets specified, but in a manner that respects different stakeholder
groups.

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So what does cultural responsibility mean in the context of advertising? What kind of
responsibility do advertising experts feel vis-à-vis consumers? What kind of ethical
considerations must advertisers and advertising experts take into account in sending
messages to consumers? How do advertising agencies and professionals influence the
development of society’s values and the formation of citizens’ values? These are the main
questions we address below.

Arouser of attention
Business success in the marketplace requires public attention. However, it is increasingly
difficult for advertisers to get that attention, to get consumers to notice their products and
services. Competition in this attention economy is continuing to get tougher: there is more of
everything in the media, more channels and more messages and more competitors and
target groups.
Advertising lies at the very core of the attention economy in that very often changes in
business strategies or advances in product development are slow processes. Advertising,
by comparison, offers a fast track to distinction and differentiation, to attracting the attention
of consumers to one’s brand or the company’s products.
The pursuit of economic success by means of the attention economy often leads to
excesses as well. Sometimes advertisements are planned to attract attention and to elicit
interest at any cost and by whatever means, without giving too much thought to whether it all
makes sense from the point of view of future business or whether it shows appropriate
responsibility towards citizens.
Advertising is given too much of a challenge if the client wants to run a campaign that
consumers will notice and remember, but does not allocate sufficient budget resources that
allow for major, distinctive actions.
For this reason it is not uncommon that advertisements aims to shock and startle the
consumer by the use of bold themes and vulgar stories, testing the boundaries of decency,
sometimes even crossing the line. Advertisements that are tougher and raunchier than usual
are certain to grab the consumer’s attention – but also give rise to debate. As a rule, the
questions raised about the responsibility of advertising concern its exceptions, its gravest
excesses.
The forms of advertising are rapidly evolving, and its renewing means and tools are pushing
the boundaries of acceptability more often than in many other industries. Another reason
why advertising innovations often attract moral debate is that they are so highly visible and
receive so much public attention.
In fast-changing industries, new boundaries are often defined in reaction to transgressions
of those boundaries. The boundaries for the use of new forms and means of marketing must
be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. The transgression of boundaries is necessary
because it is only then that serious debate is started on new phenomena. The definition of
new boundaries is a learning process for the industry, and provides useful guidance for
adopting a stance in subsequent similar cases.
This applies to media imagery more generally. Excesses and transgressions are most
immediately apparent in visual communication, and it is easier to discuss these cases than it
is to deal with more abstract media phenomena. In particular, nudity and porn-like imagery in
advertisements is a constant source of heated debate.
As far as advertising executives are concerned the contents and visual representations of
advertising are not often especially provocative when compared to many other media
representations. Many advertising experts feel that advertisements are often used as a
scapegoat for the loosening of media morals, even if the same phenomena are seen more
clearly and more intensely elsewhere in the media.
Many advertising experts emphasize that advertisements are just one part of the media. The
responsibility of advertising, they insist, should be considered in the broader context of

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 media ethics. In particular, it is felt that the print press enjoys a position of undue privilege. In
the name of freedom of speech, journalism produces such contents and images that in
advertising would be rejected and forbidden out of hand.

Shaper of the environment

The single biggest challenge for the advertising industry is presented by media
fragmentation. There is relatively broad consensus among advertising professionals that
there is need for more expertise and understanding in the industry about the fragmentation
and diversification of the media.
The continuing fragmentation of the media brings to the fore questions about both economic
and cultural responsibility in advertising. Publicity has become an increasingly
commercialized space. In the media, virtually everything is geared to promoting
something (e.g. Wernick, 1991). This has led to a situation where brands and commercial
messages are more and more closely interwoven with other media content – not just in
economic terms, but also in terms of expression. At the same time, it is often difficult for the
consumer to distinguish between promotional content and entertainment or news elements
in the media.
Advertisers no longer appear only during advertising breaks, or in traditional slots and
spaces allocated for advertisements, but they are integrated more and more systematically
as part of other media. The placement of products and brands in films, television
programmes and in console games, for instance, is another rapidly growing marketing
phenomenon. The growth of brand and product placement and the need for restrictions
have also attracted much debate and discussion.
Advertising professionals take three very different views on brand and product placement.
First, some experts take the view that placement is a natural and integral part of modern
media. As far as they are concerned it is an inevitable part of the future of marketing. In other
words, these experts do not consider the commercial placement of brands and products in
the media as problematic in any way. One reason for this is that it is thought ultimately to be
down to consumers to decide whether a television programme or newspaper article is a
product that interests them and whether it has a real chance of succeeding in the future.
Second, some advertising executives take a neutral stance on brand and product
placement. They do not consider this a particularly important or interesting issue, but simply
as one aspect of the changing media scene. Many experts take a moderate moral stance on
placement because the media carry so much violent and pornographic imagery that
product promotions, by comparison, are a much less serious ethical issue.
The third group of advertising experts takes a staunchly critical stance on brand and product
placement. Some executives consider it outright distasteful and despicable. Placement is
criticized mainly on grounds that it is difficult for consumers to know when a certain brand or
product appears in the media for commercial purposes. Traditional advertisements are
considered open and transparent in the sense that consumers understand that their
purpose is to persuade them to buy.
The growing penetration of advertising concerns not only media contents, but the urban
environment as well. Brands and logos are spreading throughout society: they are a visible
part both of the media and the urban environment, its streets, squares and shopping
centres. Many advertising experts are dubious about the penetration of marketing into
people’s everyday life. The advertising industry, too, is critical of the trend which has seen
marketing spread to places where it is not necessarily welcome, such as the urban
environment.
Advertisers and advertising agencies have come in for much criticism among other reasons
for contaminating people’s visual environment. This is seen precisely as an indication of
advertisers’ lack of social responsibility – companies are accused of sacrificing people’s
everyday pleasures at the expense of companies’ business interests.

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Traditional industry bears its own responsibility for the sensible use of natural resources and
the cleanliness of the environment. This is referred to as environmental responsibility. In the
advertising business, environmental responsibility in its traditional sense finds concrete
expression in the type of materials used (paper, packaging materials), the sourcing of those
materials and the environmental burden of the manufacturing process.
In practice, the environmental responsibility of the advertising industry is mainly about
assuming responsibility for the media environment, as advertisers and advertising
designers have an ever greater impact on how the public space is constructed. The
media environment is composed of the audio and visual elements of newspapers, television,
websites and radio, but also of billboards, neon signs, logos, tabloid posters.
Advertising that follows the principles of responsible business takes account of the values
and needs of its clients and targets groups, but also of the assumptions and expectations of
citizens’ and consumer associations and other stakeholder groups. Advertising
professionals weighs the various possible ways in which billboard images, for instance,
can be experienced, interpreted and understood before they are erected. This way it will be
able to also anticipate what kinds of ethical issues may emerge in the ensuing public debate.

Shapers of values
There is widespread concern in society today about how the media and advertising are
impacting people’s everyday life. Advertisers are traditionally held responsible for a whole
array of social problems. Critics have described advertising as the ultimate caricature of
capitalism, an exercise in manipulation geared to distorting people’s needs and hopes and
bringing them in line with businesses’ profit motives.
The thinking is that advertising shapes attitudes and creates values, which then steer the
behaviour of consumers (see also Gustafson, 2001). Advertisers have been blamed for
young people’s obesity and unhealthy eating habits, for the growth of anorexia and for
distorted body images.
But what is the role of advertising in the formation of social values? And how do advertising
experts believe marketing impacts the values of individual citizens?
Advertising experts take the view that marketing cannot be isolated from other social or
economic debate on values. Since advertising is a tool of business competition in market
economy, its responsibility must be considered in the wider context of moral debate in
society at large.
It is often difficult for professionals to connect everyday creative decisions with the unfolding
of broader social phenomena. The social impacts of advertising are not direct, but indirect.
They are often of a structural nature, evolving slowly and incrementally. Some advertising
experts suspect that it may be difficult to identify abstract social consequences and
mechanisms in everyday advertising because the work they do with advertisers is very
practically-minded and business-oriented.
The assessment of the social impacts of advertising depends largely on the client company.
In some industries the company’s social relations are a matter of routine assessment, in
others the social consequences of business are hardly considered at all. In many of these
companies the analysis of broader social responsibilities is ignored and sidelined because
instead of long-term future scenarios, management is preoccupied with running the
everyday business.
There is a strong sense among advertising experts that rather than steering society and
culture, advertising simply reflects what is happening in society and culture. Even though it
is acknowledged that advertising does influence consumption behaviour, for instance, that
has little bearing on people’s fundamental values.
As far as advertising experts are concerned, advertising does not create values, but takes
advantage of existing values. For purposes of marketing it is important to try and detect new
trends and phenomena and to make good use of them. In the words of one expert,

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 advertising is not about consciously trying to shape and steer values in society, but about
trying to gain commercial benefit from prevailing values.
Advertisements are just a thin slice of modern media, and this applies to their impact on
citizens’ values as well. Many advertising experts are adamant that the media more
generally, such as tabloids and magazines reporting on the mishaps of celebrities, have a
much greater impact on people’s values and attitudes than advertisements.
Yet advertising is at the receiving end of much and harsh criticism. One reason why
advertising figures so prominently in public debate on social values is that advertisements
encapsulate these social ills and problems in such an easily debatable form.
Indeed, it is important for the responsible advertiser to look ahead and anticipate how
different stakeholders will respond to advertising campaigns and what kind of debate these
campaigns will stir up. Advertisements do not and cannot regulate what people think or say,
but they do have an influence on what people talk about and what concepts and angles they
use.
It is for this reason that advertising agency experts feel they shape and influence cultural
development through their involvement in advertising campaigns that are aimed at
promoting social issues. Many advertising agencies offer their expertise to what they
consider important and socially valuable organizations free of charge. Advertising
professionals also feel that social advertising gives them the opportunity to put their
professionalism to good use in the promotion of the common good.
Advertising professionals feel that they are first and foremost responsible to their clients, to
the advertiser. It is typical of the advertising community that industry actions are marketed
and justified to clients, but other stakeholders are largely ignored. The emphasis is firmly on
business targets and business responsibilities, whereas questions of social responsibility
seem remote and alien.
The advertising industry often takes a rather indifferent attitude to wider social issues.
Advertising, it seems, is internationally a rather self-centred professional culture. Based on
their interviews with advertising professionals working in different jobs in American
agencies, Minette Drumwright and Patrick Murphy conclude that advertising experts have
great difficulty identifying the moral and social impacts of their work; and on the other hand
that when do recognize these impacts, advertising professionals rarely raise public debate
about them. (Drumwright and Murphy, 2004.)
Advertising professionals are interested in social themes and concerns if they are central to
their client companies’ strategies. Agencies have not yet adopted the principles of
responsible business as part of their everyday operation and strategic decision-making.

Conclusion: diverging responsibilities in the advertising business

Questions of responsible business conduct usually surface if and when there is a threat of
cultural and social interests being overshadowed by business profit motives. A responsible
business is expected to show foresight in its decision-making, to think how its decisions will
impact the company, its stakeholders and the future of society at large.
In other words, one of the key issues in responsible business is what the organization should
do if it has diverging, irreconcilable responsibilities that pull it in different directions (e.g.
Fisher and Lovell, 2006). How can a company decide whose interests are to be given
precedence in a situation where the expectations of different stakeholder groups cannot be
reconciled? In the advertising industry, this is a particularly intriguing question, and one that
has much current interest.
The immediate goal for advertising professionals is to promote the advertiser’s business,
and at the same time to contribute to the success of the advertising agency and to promote
the careers of advertising designers and other experts. This is a typical source of conflicting
pressures and interests in the advertising industry. Can the diverging responsibilities and
interests be reconciled? Whose interests are the advertising agency and advertising expert

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working to promote? Whose interests are given priority in advertising design? The
advertising company’s, the advertising agency’s, or the advertising designer’s?
First of all, experts working in advertising agencies say that they are primarily answerable to
their clients, to the advertising company. In the advertising business social responsibility is
understood first and foremost in terms of responsibility for the bottom line. Executives of
Finnish advertising agencies consider it their prime responsibility to ensure the profitability of
their clients as well as their own business.
Advertisers often invest considerable sums in individual advertisements and campaigns. It
is the advertising agency’s and advertising experts’ responsibility to spend these monies in
such a way that they can produce as effective and high-quality advertising as possible.
Traditionally, advertising agencies have been in the business of selling advertising design
and production services. This has implied a professional subcontractor role for the
advertising agency. Advertising experts consider it extremely important that the
advertisements and other measures designed and produced by the advertising agency
have been done professionally, since these measures and their quality are highly visible
criteria for the evaluation of responsibility.
Another characteristic of responsible advertising mentioned by advertising agency
executives is the overall thoroughness and transparency of business operations. The
advertising agency has a responsibility to make clear to the advertiser the motivations and
rationale that lie behind all proposed actions. If high quality management procedures are in
place, the advertising company will also be able to feel confident in trusting the agency’s
professionalism, timetables and the legality of all marketing materials.
Many advertising experts consider it their most important responsibility to make sure that the
advertisements they produce achieve the goals and targets set by the client company. The
advertising agency is responsible for ensuring that the actions attain the advertising targets
set: that they attract attention, provide information, engender impressions, create awareness
and increase desirability. On the other hand, advertising agencies also bear responsibility
for the business objectives that have been specified for marketing.
Second, advertising professionals are also responsible to their employers, i.e. to the
advertising agency. Advertising professionals must take account of the interests of the
company they represent, its owners and management. Creatives are expected to produce
high quality, distinctive and effective advertising that helps to make the agency a more
attractive partner to the advertising company.
The responsibilities to the client company and to one’s own company are often convergent,
i.e. if the client is happy with how the process has gone and with the end result, then as a rule
the employer, the advertising agency will be happy as well. On the other hand, it is crucially
important for the success of the advertising agency that its employees are satisfied.
Companies that offer marketing and advertising services are typical examples of intangible
economy organizations where business success depends on the skills and commitment of
staff and management.
Third, advertising experts feel it is important to promote their own careers as well. Some
designers are thought to use the advertising company’s campaigns chiefly for purposes of
building up their own brand, enhancing their own reputation. A typical instance would be
where the designer persuades the advertiser to take on a more daring and radical campaign
than was initially intended. In these cases, the failure of the campaign to reach the
advertiser’s goals will be of no concern to the selfish advertising agency if it has attracted so
much attention for its creativity that that enhances the agency’s own reputation.
For example, studies among advertising professionals in London agencies showed that their
choices and decisions were often been motivated purely by interests of personal reputation.
The creative designers interviewed in London said it was their primary goal to promote their
own career rather than to develop the business of the advertising company or the
advertising agency. (Nixon, 2003, pp. 88-91; Cronin, 2004, pp. 63-4.)

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 Many experts working in advertising agencies regard themselves as independent
entrepreneurs, and the best way for them to get ahead in their career is to win advertising
awards. In fact, research has shown that as far as advertising designers are concerned,
overly cautious and conservative advertisers inhibit creative and ambitious advertising
design, making it much harder for them to produce innovative advertising that will convince
colleagues and award committees. (Nixon, 2003, pp. 88-9.)
Fourth, advertising professionals also influence the reputation of the industry and its
operating environment. Advertising experts consider it their economic responsibility to
promote the business of the client company by means of marketing. They believe this will be
reflected in the success of their own company and in the growth of the whole industry.
The biggest obstacle that stands in the way of advertising gaining a stronger social role is
the professional culture of competition, which effectively precludes debate on the wider role
and function of the professional community. Advertising businesses and individual
designers are good at promoting their own interests, but they are less interested in
advocating the community interests of the industry as a whole.
Rather than pooling its resources to promote the industry’s common cause, the advertising
business is locked in internal competition. These internal conflicts are draining the resources
and energies of advertising professionals and undermining their economic potential as well
as their cultural esteem.
For advertising professionals, then, the question of how to prioritize stakeholders is a
particularly challenging one. It is usually the company operator that is expected to show
responsibility in its business practices, but in the marketing communications field personal
choices by individual experts are exceptionally important as well. In practice, advertising
professionals are responsible for their actions to virtually everyone.
The bigger picture, therefore, has to incorporate the interests of both the advertising
company, the advertising agency and the individual designer. Fourth, advertising designers
and the work they do impacts and shapes the operating environment of the whole industry.
Fifth, the choices made by designers impact the everyday life of consumers and other
citizens.
And sixth, advertising professionals must also take account of the interests of consumer
bodies and authorities charged with governing and regulating the ethics of advertising.
Although the ethics and social consequences of advertising largely remain a matter of
self-regulation by advertisers, advertising agencies and advertising designers, there are
also various authorities and committees and other public agencies in organized society that
are officially charged with regulating advertising.

Note
1. The interviewed advertising executives were: Taru From, Managing Director, Taivas; Ami Hasan,
Chairman, hasan & partners; Arto Heimonen, Managing Director, SEK & GREY Oy; Petteri Kilpinen,
Managing Director, TBWA\PHS Helsinki Oy; Niko Kokonmäki, Planning Director, SEK & GREY Oy;
Tommi Laiho, Strategy Director, TBWA\PHS Helsinki Oy; Marco Mäkinen, Strategy Director, SEK &
GREY Oy; Alex Nieminen, Managing Director, hasan & partners; Mikko Pekkala, Copywriter, Publicis
Helsinki; Jukka Peltonen, Managing Director, Taivas; Timi Petersen, Creative Director, hasan &
partners; Jari-Pekka Rautamaa, Managing Director, Publicis Helsinki; Markku Rönkkö, Creative
Director, copywriter, TBWA\PHS Helsinki Oy; Anna Sorainen, Communications Director, Publicis
Helsinki; Kari Tervonen, Strategy Director, Kuulas Research Agency.

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Corresponding author
Nando Malmelin can be contacted at: nando.malmelin@a-lehdet.fi

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