Abstract
Mass consumption is an intrinsic characteristic of market economy. As individual acts, consumption decisions should be free. In addition, it would be desirable they were carried out in an ethical and responsible way, balancing not only the objective capacity to satisfy consumer’s needs but also the consequences for health, environment and labour work conditions of people involved in the production and distribution process. In this sense, information is a basic requirement to be able to choose. But, in spite of the fact that information is acknowledged as a consumer’s basic right, its practice effectiveness is not enough yet. Advertising contributes to a large extent to that since it is a communication mechanism that does not require an objective message content to be legal. At the same time, the very survival of our economic system depends on the consumption increase, especially in recession periods like the current one. All this factors make consumption and ethics turn into two terms difficult to combine.
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Notes
These authors agree that consumers are manipulated by the media and advertising.
According to Barber, quoted by Alonso Benito (2005), a related but different concept is the so-call fair trade. The fair trade is defined by the WFTO (World Fair Trade Organization) as a trading partnership based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers – especially in the South. As Ranson (2002) points out trade is a voluntary exchange between people who allow it, therefore it is fair for definition. But at the same time the term “fair” would mean a contradiction since trade corrects itself automatically with market forces.
For Lucena Bonny (2002), in spite of the fact that organizing life apart from sustainability is a suicide for humanity, human being’s “specific gluttony” makes him/her insatiable of what is pleasant for him/her.
Adhesive contracts have this name because consumers are given the option to adhere or not to it but he or she cannot modify the contract’s terms. See Marín López (2000).
Average Consumer Standard concept was set by the European Court of Justice’s decision Gut Springenheide, of July 16, 1998. It has had some influence on some regulations as the Rule nº. 1924/2006, related to food nutritional information.
Law 34/1998, November, 1, modified by Law 39/2002, October, 28. However there exist some other norms regulating advertising. For example: the Television without Frontiers Law (Law 25/1994, July 12), the Decree-law 1907/1996, August 2, on Miracle-Products Advertising and others on labelling, tobacco and alcohol, e-commerce, etc.
Comparison will be carried out between goods with the same aim. It will be objective, and based on pertinent, verifiable, representative and basic characteristics of compared products. It cannot be parasitic, that is, a company cannot wrongly obtain an advantage from other’s brand reputation.
The debatable decision of the Spanish Supreme Court of February 24, 1997, could serve as an example: Coca Cola sued Pepsi Co. for doing comparative advertising. Pepsi Co. broadcast a commercial in 1991 identifying the consumption of Pepsi coke with cool young people and with the music of M.C. Hammer. Meantime it showed a red can drink with the music of Morris Albert’s popular song “Feelings” (1974) causing despondency to the public. The Court’s decision understood there was not illicit advertising for two reasons: in first place, because Pepsi Co. commercial did not compare specifically essential characteristics; and, in second place, because it was not possible to clearly identify the red can with Coca-Cola brand. It claimed that in the Spanish soft drinks market there are some others drinks apart from Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co.
According to Quintana (1996), users, information organizations, practitioners, authorities and university should engage in a public debate in order to achieve some effective agreements to overcome current tensions.
The EEJ-Net objective is to solve in an extra-judicial way cross-border conflicts with regard to consumption.
As all organs of the EEJ-Net, the Autocontrol’s Advertising Jury assumes all action principles established by the Recommendations of the European Union number 98/257 and 2001/310, on impartiality, transparency, efficacy, equity, independence, contradiction, legality, freedom and representation. The INC elects the 25% of its members.
Francés (2001) states that there are serious doubts about: the existence of a virtue characteristic of consumption, the consideration of consumers as moral agents and the possibility to set consumption ethics. For this author, consumers are moral patients since they depend on suppliers’ decisions. Consumers would be patients of a better or not others’ ethics.
In the same line see Naredo (2006). The author is very critical with the “ecological development” that sells a green image together with the economy growth mythology.
The so-called neuro-marketing. See Braidot, N.P. “Neuromarketing”, Barcelona, 2009.
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Díaz-Méndez, M. Ethics and consumption: a difficult balance. Int Rev Public Nonprofit Mark 7, 1–10 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12208-010-0050-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12208-010-0050-9