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Metaphysics of Advertising
Sharon Adetutu OMOTOSO
Department of Politics & International Relations
Lead City University, Ibadan, Nigeria
sharonomotoso@gmail.com
Abstract
From the Kantian perspective, advertising operates in the
realm of phenomena (things as they appear) as against the
noumena (things as they are). Advertising aims at influencing
consumers purchase decisions, with an objective of
appealing to mans appetitive part so that sales of advertised
products or services can be achieved. This paper undertakes
a critical investigation on the implications of the metaphysics
of advertising on human existence. From a metaphysicians
perspective, the paper questions the place of idealism in the
materialistic world of advertising, the relationship between
determinism and freewill in consumers purchasing pattern
and the need for an existential turn in consumer behaviour.
Using the critical and analytic methods of research, this
paper argues that beyond psychological explanations, there
are metaphysical explanations to issues in advertising
practice. Seeing that consumers are usually left to bear the
consequences of their actions, the paper maintains that
consumers must begin to consider the existential effects of
their purchase decisions through critical thinking and media
literacy.
Keywords
Advertising; Metaphysics; Determinism; Freewill; Human Existence
Introduction
Discussions in advertising have frequently revolved
disciplines like ethics, psychology, law and economics,
among others. One may therefore wonder what is to
discuss in metaphysics of advertising or better still,
what is metaphysical about advertising. There is also
an assumption that if a philosopher is to discuss any
profession, such discussion will either possibly be
ethical or epistemological. However, one must not
ignore the fact that there are inherent metaphysical
issues in any reasoning. While most philosophical
studies in advertising focus on the ethical perspective,
Fadahunsi (2004:17) asserted that metaphysics
permeates into the fabrics of ethics too, and stated
that:
Behind every moral issue lies an element of metaphysics.
Moral concepts like good, evil, bad, right,
wrong, freedom, determination are all metaphysical
This paper is a modification of authors PhD Thesis.
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adds that
for instance, if there are no specific disclosures on the
label of a food product regarding safety, consumers
will rely on their food safety schema to infer that the
food is safe for consumption like all other foods.
Thus, the foregoing shows that a pattern of reasoning
is expected from consumers, which will help them fish
out hidden facts and interpret implied claims.
Furthermore, attempts to strip advertising of
untruthfulness have led to its regulation by different
bodies in most parts of the world.
For instance, advertising in Nigeria is regulated by the
Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria
(APCON), established by Decree Number 55 of 1988,
also, the Advertising Standards Panel (ASP) of
APCON vets and approves advertisements before
exposure. These regulations over the years have
greatly reduced cases of deceit and untruthfulness in
Nigerias advertising industry.
Advertising is also criticised for corrupting morals and
encouraging materialism by lauding false values.
Critics argue that it often debases its target market
whenever it passes messages intended for them to
other members of the society. For instance,
advertisements of contraceptives which consistently
get exposed to youths and children rather than to the
married and matured members of the society debase
its primary target. In the same vein, exposure to such
advertisement has a high tendency of promoting
promiscuity among youths, thereby degenerating
moral values. In their attempts at defending
advertising from this criticism, Toynbee & Bernbach
(1974:423) argued that advertising is neither moral
nor immoral and that it is the purpose for which
advertising is used that can be qualified as good or
bad. Toynbee & Bernbachs position is construed as
amoralism as it places the end above the means
thereby bringing advertising back to a consequentialist
platform.
From an economists viewpoint, advertising is
criticised for encouraging sheer waste of scarce
resources by promoting impulse buying; that is,
making people buy things they do not need. In
economics, it has been observed that advertising
boosts market monopoly and profit monopoly, since
only large organizations can maintain the cost of
consistent advertising. They argued further that
advertising increases the unit cost of products, since
the cost of advertising is added to production cost. By
this, consumers are made to pay higher than they
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therefore
entails
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New York: Mcgraw- Hill, 1974.
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Steven.
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