8629: Madison Avenue Ethics An Oxymoron…?

Last June, ad wonk Wally Snyder announced the formation of an Institute for Advertising Ethics whose primary goal was to draft a code of ethics for the industry. Advertising Age published a follow-up, and here is the much-anticipated result:

Principles and Practices of Advertising

• Advertising, public relations, marketing communications, news, and editorial all share a common objective of truth and high ethical standards in serving the public.

• Advertising, public relations, and all marketing communications professionals have an obligation to exercise the highest personal ethics in the creation and dissemination of commercial information to consumers.

• Advertisers should clearly distinguish advertising, public relations and corporate communications from news and editorial content and entertainment, both online and offline.

• Advertisers should clearly disclose all material conditions, such as payment or receipt of a free product, affecting endorsements in social and traditional channels, as well as the identity of endorsers, all in the interest of full disclosure and transparency.

• Advertisers should treat consumers fairly based on the nature of the audience to whom the ads are directed and the nature of the product or service advertised.

• Advertisers should never compromise consumers' personal privacy in marketing communications, and their choices as to whether to participate in providing their information should be transparent and easily made.

• Advertisers should follow federal, state and local advertising laws, and cooperate with industry self-regulatory programs for the resolution of advertising practices.

• Advertisers and their agencies, and online and offline media, should discuss privately potential ethical concerns, and members of the team creating ads should be given permission to express internally their ethical concerns.

Wow. Wonder how many boxes of Dunkin’ Munchkins® the committee consumed to create this gem. The vague manifesto doesn’t even rival ex-con/adwoman Shona Seifert’s Proposed Code of Ethics for the Advertising Industry. Snyder gushed, “I believe [the code] will lead to a new way of thinking about ethics from, ‘Well, we should be ethical’ to ‘We’ve got to be ethical to build our business better.’” It would have been more efficient and effective to simply provide a link to The Golden Rule.

7705: The Latest AAF BS.

Advertising Age reported on the creation of an Institute for Advertising Ethics. The goal of the organization will be to combat the negative perceptions the public has about the ad industry. As always, the morons behind this effort don’t seem to realize there’s a very easy way to appear more ethical: Be more ethical. Lead idiot Wally Snyder actually had the audacity to compare the IAE to other AAF pipe dreams like the Mosaic Awards and diversity initiatives. Um, pointing to the “success” of such things only confirms the dearth of ethics—as well as the dearth of ethnics.

Ad Industry Battles Back Against Bad Rep, Forms Ethics Institute

AAF Partnership With University of Missouri Led by Wally Snyder Draws Marketing Heavyhitters to Its Board

By Jack Neff

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- It’s no secret that consumers don’t exactly think highly of the advertising industry—especially when it comes to ethics. So the American Advertising Foundation is teaming up with the University of Missouri’s Reynolds Journalism Institute this week to launch an Institute for Advertising Ethics.

In a 2007 Gallup/USA Today Poll, advertising practitioners ranked third from last among professions in public perception of honesty and ethics, just ahead of lobbyists and car salesmen and below congressmen, state officeholders and business executives.

The institute, to be formally announced at the AAF national conference June 11 in Orlando, will research what matters most to consumers regarding advertising ethics, and will develop a set of principles for marketers and agencies to follow.

The AAF is providing seed money, office space and staffing to help launch and run the institute, which the group’s former president, Wally Snyder, will head as executive director. An advisory board of current and former industry leaders includes former Procter & Gamble Co. Global Marketing Officer Bob Wehling, who said he began pushing to create the institute in 2008 in response to the Gallup poll.

“I’ve been concerned about this issue my whole life,” Mr. Wehling said. “I’ve seen so many people shade the truth. This is my profession, and I feel like it’s being desecrated by so many people.”

University of Missouri research, led by Mr. Snyder as an adjunct professor, indicates honest advertising is the single biggest factor in corporate reputation, ranking ahead of sustainability and corporate-social-responsibility programs.

Yet about a third of consumers don’t feel advertising is ethical, Mr. Snyder said.

“So there’s an opportunity here to really enhance the ethics,” he said. “And as companies do that, they’re going to really get a better response.”

What people think
Missouri’s research, if anything, is more forgiving than Gallup’s, which found only 6% of people gave advertising practitioners high or very high marks for ethics, compared to 42% who gave them low or very low marks.

“How are we ever going to have a positive relationship with our consumers and recruit the best and brightest people into the profession in the future if people think we’re charlatans?” Mr. Wehling said.

When he accepted his entry into the AAF Hall of Achievement in 2008, about five months after the poll came out, Mr. Wehling called on attendees to take up the charge to improve the industry’s image. He said the effort got immediate support from Mr. Snyder and some others now on the new institute’s board of advisers, such as Omnicom Group Vice Chairman Tim Love and William Price, founder of Cincinnati media agency Empower Media Marketing, a Missouri alum.

The institute’s first order of business is conducting research on what matters to consumers regarding advertising ethics, including in emerging areas such as behavioral targeting and online privacy, said Margaret Duffy, associate professor of strategic communications at Missouri, who will lead a research effort that will also include in-depth interviews with industry practitioners and CEOs.

New program
The institute’s board of advisers also will establish a program the first year to recognize advertisers who demonstrate high ethical standards.

In year two, the institute will introduce a set of guiding principles for advertising ethics and begin discussions with industry players on how to apply them. Mr. Wehling said he would like to see everyone in the industry annually sign a pledge to adhere to ethical standards.

He compared the ethics drive to another effort he spearheaded in the 1990s via the Association of National Advertisers—the Family Friendly Programming Council—since redubbed the Alliance for Family Entertainment. Mr. Snyder compared the IAE to another AAF initiative, the Mosaic program to encourage progress on multicultural advertising and diversity.

While the ad industry has made progress on multicultural marketing since the AAF launched Mosaic, and many advertisers have substantially increased representation of ethnic minorities in their management ranks, general-market advertising agencies record is still so poor they face the prospect of a class-action diversity lawsuit.

Industry goal
Mr. Wehling said he hopes to “keep the issue in front of people until we see those polls say something different, which I think is going to be in my grandchildren’s lifetime, but certainly not mine.”

The goal isn’t just repairing the advertising industry’s image, but also leapfrogging some others, said AAF CEO James Datri.

“This is an opportunity not only for us to lead within the industry but, at a time of a lot of public mistrust of business in general, I think this is an opportunity for the advertising industry to be a leader among industries,” he said.

Besides Messrs. Snyder, Wehling, Love and Price and Ms. Duffy, other board members of the Institute include David Bell, chairman emeritus of Interpublic Group of Cos. and adviser to Pegasus Capital Advisors; Linda Eatherton, director of Ketchum’s global food and nutrition practice; and Tiffany Warren, chief diversity officer of Omnicom. Mr. Datri joins Dean Mills, dean of the Missouri School of Journalism, among ex-officio board members.

Essay 4561

The Advertising Age interview with retiring AAF president-CEO Wally Snyder (see Essay 4556) warrants a few responses, particularly regarding the comments on multicultural marketing and diversity. First, let’s review the excerpt…

Ad Age: Over the course of your time at the AAF, what is your proudest achievement?

Mr. Snyder: The one thing I am most proud of is what we’ve accomplished in multicultural marketing and diversity. We started about 15 years ago when I think there wasn’t a real appreciation of the benefits of reaching different cultures in advertising. We have three programs that I think really stand out. The Most Promising Minority Students program, where we have brought talented students of color to the industry; over the last 12 years we’ve been doing the program, 70% of them are still in the business and making a contribution. Also, our Mosaic Awards have really recognized the companies and individuals that have contributed successfully in this area of multicultural marketing, so that’s a real accomplishment. And we put together a task force of leading clients like Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. … [T]ogether over the years they came up with the multicultural guidelines for advertising.

Ad Age: How would you estimate the pace of progress when it comes to minority representation in the industry?

Mr. Snyder: The progress can be measured in the fact that first, clients understood the importance of multicultural advertising, but have moved beyond that to know how to effectively do that. The other progress is that in order to do it effectively, we’ve all learned that we [have] to surround ourselves with diversity, and I think there is a real effort now to hire minority professionals. Having said all that, I think we have a long way to go.

Snyder said, “We started about 15 years ago when I think there wasn’t a real appreciation of the benefits of reaching different cultures in advertising.” Wow. The leading multicultural advertising agencies launched in the 1970s and 1980s. Is Snyder implying these shops toiled for decades without being appreciated? Then again, it could be argued that minority shops continue to be unappreciated.

The Mosaic Awards, according to Snyder, have “really recognized the companies and individuals that have contributed successfully in this area of multicultural marketing.” Wonder how many non-minority adpeople have ever heard of these awards.

As for “the multicultural guidelines for advertising,” also known as the Mosaic Principles and Practical Guidelines, well, you be the judge. Click on the essay title above to download the document. The objectives and strategies make total sense. But is anyone following, enforcing or even acknowledging it all? The value of this minority manifesto is diminished if it remains a dream deferred and unread.

Snyder exhibits his experience as a lawyer and huckster in answering the second question. Everyone is welcome to try deciphering the statements. If the industry has made progress by recognizing “we’ve all learned that we [have] to surround ourselves with diversity,” why does the issue remain a major problem? The only time it’s seriously addressed is when Madison Avenue is faced with the threat of legal action from organizations like the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Snyder admits, “I think we have a long way to go.”

You think?

Essay 4556

From AdAge.com, an interview with outgoing AAF president-CEO Wally Snyder. Check out his perspectives on diversity…

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AAF’s Snyder Has a Few Thoughts for His Successor

Ad Group’s Retiring CEO Talks Diversity, Fragmentation and Ethics

By Rupal Parekh

NEW YORK -- The American Advertising Federation’s president-CEO, Wally Snyder, came to the Washington-based trade group in the fall of 1985 after a career as a trial attorney and adviser to the Federal Trade Commission on advertising issues. In 1990, he was promoted from senior VP-government relations to executive VP-government, and took on the role of president-CEO two years later.

After a tremendous 15-year run at the helm of the AAF, during which time Mr. Snyder spearheaded numerous diversity- and ethics-related industry initiatives and testified before state and federal lawmakers on key industry issues and helped grow the organization’s membership to 50,000, he’s getting ready to pass the torch.

Ad Age: Do you plan to remain active and involved in the industry?

Wally Snyder: Yes. It’s a great industry. I really want to stay involved in advertising, particularly public-policy issues surrounding advertising. The one I will really focus on is advertising ethics–I’ve written in the area, and I want to continue to lecture in this area.

Ad Age: Over the course of your time at the AAF, what is your proudest achievement?

Mr. Snyder: The one thing I am most proud of is what we’ve accomplished in multicultural marketing and diversity. We started about 15 years ago when I think there wasn’t a real appreciation of the benefits of reaching different cultures in advertising. We have three programs that I think really stand out. The Most Promising Minority Students program, where we have brought talented students of color to the industry; over the last 12 years we’ve been doing the program, 70% of them are still in the business and making a contribution. Also, our Mosaic Awards have really recognized the companies and individuals that have contributed successfully in this area of multicultural marketing, so that’s a real accomplishment. And we put together a task force of leading clients like Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. … [T]ogether over the years they came up with the multicultural guidelines for advertising.

Ad Age: How would you estimate the pace of progress when it comes to minority representation in the industry?

Mr. Snyder: The progress can be measured in the fact that first, clients understood the importance of multicultural advertising, but have moved beyond that to know how to effectively do that. The other progress is that in order to do it effectively, we’ve all learned that we to surround ourselves with diversity, and I think there is a real effort now to hire minority professionals. Having said all that, I think we have a long way to go.

Ad Age: Going forward, what do you see as being the biggest challenge to this industry?

Mr. Snyder: This industry has changed more in the past two years than the previous 15, and is changing rapidly. All of the new digital opportunities to reach consumers are really important, and the first thing we have to continue to work on is building principles and plans that give clients opportunities to use all of these different [mediums]. The opportunity to connect the American advertising industry and our players with the global industry is a big challenge. We are going to be aided in that by our online capabilities. It’s ironic that as the world is getting smaller because of digital communication, we are becoming more fragmented as an industry. There is a need for the AAF to continually connect all of the facets of the business.

Ad Age: There are so many associations now, to some degree isn’t that fragmenting for the industry?

Mr. Snyder: Over my career, I’ve seen people only belonging to those associations where they get bottom-line benefits. The AAF pulls everybody together. I have never sold against the other associations, because we are all needed, but the special duty AAF has is to pull all the players together at one table. The only way to solve industrywide issues is to bring everyone together. AAF has proven itself by taking on the really tough issues. The AAF’s role is to make sure that everybody is participating in the decision making.

Ad Age: What advice would you give to your successor?

Mr. Snyder: The principal advice is it’s very important to be open and positive … and certainly to look to all of the opportunities we have to connect our members. I want my successor to be really knowledge-based in the advertising profession and in public policy, and certainly very energetic. I, along with the leadership of the AAF, are calling on people to apply. We’ve had a lot of people express interest and have applications already. We’re going to have a lot of great candidates.