Advertising ethics: The case of Turkish television advertisements

Today, advertising, which has been enhanced due to the advanced technologies, has become an indispensable tool for companies trying to survive in competitive environment. In this competitive environment, so as to promote products and services to a higher range of consumers, some ethic rules were violated in the advertisements.In this study, advertising ethic and unethical issues in television advertisements were tried to be explained within the scope of ethics and unethical practices used in television advertisements were discussed. Furthermore in this research, it has been attempted to determine, which ethical factors are significant in the advertisement and the placement of those factors in the advertisements have been set forth. In accordance with the outcome derived from the research, recommendations have been given and it has been aimed to decrease the use of unethical practices in the television advertisements.In this research, 20 advertisements which were televised for 12 months between the 1 January-31 December 2010, were selected according to the data received from the Media Monitoring Centre and these advertisements were analysed by using semiotics. As a result of the analysis, it has been found that there is a widespread use of women and children in the advertisements and by using themes like pleasure, passion and fear more consumption is trying to be prompted. It has been concluded that the consumers are deceived by unethical practices used in advertisements.Key Words1. Ethics,2. Advertisement,3. Television Advertisements,4. Advertising Ethics,5. Semiotics.