EOC Week 2: Ethics in Comercials

Ethics: a system of moral principles

Have you ever seen a commercial that was just wrong?
There have been a few commercials that in the attempt to appear one way seem to come out as ethically wrong. For me one commercial particularly seemed very unethical to me. The commercial was the, Burger King/ Sponge Bob commercial. For those who have not seen this commercial let’s just recap this commercial real fast. It’s starts up and the very first thing you see is Sponge Bob, the children’s cartoon character, on TV. Yet the very first thing you hear is a remix of Sir Mix A Lot’s “I like big butts,” but it is square butts rather than big butts, as if that is any better. At the very end we see sexy women dancing with their backsides to the camera. The whole commercial these women are dancing, showing their rear ends, while trying to sell this to children! Today we see sex everywhere and we have all heard that famous saying, “Sex sells!” Is it true, of course it is. There is absolutely no doubt that sex sells and D&G are the prime example of that. So when does this ‘Sex sells!’ attitudes go too far for us and crosses that line from ethical to unethical. For me it is fine for Dolce & Gabbana to have sexy and risky ad campaigns. That’s who they are and the people who buy their clothing can choose to shop because of those ads. This Sponge Bob BK commercial would have been fine if it had been targeted toward adults rather than to little kids. Why would you advertise something for little kids with this kind of content? Is it right to have a connection between Sponge Bob and ‘square butts’? I find it a little disturbing that the people who came up with this idea find it don’t.