Is there something morally bankrupt about advertising?
Killing people is morally bankrupt. Advertising is not only a necessity to educate the consumer (see: theory of capitalism), but an inevitability. You might as well cash in on it, especially if you enjoy the work. Also, advertising seems to be the last remaining bastion of frivolous expense accounts… which can have its benefits.
Whether or not advertising itself is unethical, for almost every enterprise some form of advertising or marketing is absolutely essential for getting the money flowing. Since it’s one of the activities responsible for keeping your paycheck coming, scorning advertising in most cases is simply letting someone else do the dirty work. And indirectly advertising is similarly responsible for much of the prosperity of the modern economy even if you were to take a job in government or healthcare or some other less-advertised field. So I’d say, unless you’re prepared to live as a hermit for moral reasons, don’t go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to talk yourself out of a job you’d enjoy.
I work in advertising, and have colleagues who have commented on how horrible some of the things are that we sell (super high interest rate credit cards, etc). I get it. But all of the things we sell aren’t like that. And I am a strong proponent of consumer/individual responsibility. Nobody is being forced into buying everything advertised. Especially now, with the wealth of information available a few clicks away on the internet. If I’m going to worry about something or spend my time trying to change something, it’s not going to be advertising, it’s going to be education. If we don’t buy the bad stuff, the bad stuff will lose. I should note that by and large, it’s the account exec types (and other non-creative types) who tend to be more down on advertising than the creative types. Some of the advertising creatives I know are SO INTO solving every creative problem, it’s amazing. These people are passionate about their work. You might enjoy that environment. Check it out sooner rather t
Advertising is hardly objectively unethical. It has a lot more to do with what the ads are for and how they’re being used. Some people may find using ads to sell tobacco to children problematic, but it’s pretty hard to say that Toyota encouraging people to get a hybrid instead of an H2 is really evil. As GuyZero said, ads are the primary source of funding for the vast majority of media in the world, and that inclues the good stuff. Advertising is everywhere and activities that are generally not profitable (most of the arts) rely extensively on it. Even if you’re willing to pay $200 for a local theatre troupe’s performance, most people are not. Like almost everything, advertising is pretty solidly grey. While a lot of it isn’t good (I personally don’t believe any of it is unethical, but a lot of it sure is mind-rendingly stupid), it can have good effects. As many above folks have said, you’ll be able to make a much larger difference is a happy, profitable advertising job than in a miser
I work in a form of advertising, as a copywriter. I kinda flopped into it after my whole adult life was spent doing ethically neutral-to-good, creative stuff, that I was never forceful enough to make real money out of. I thought this business was immoral when I got into it, but I also thought that I’d done plenty immoral things before in my life and still remained kind of pure. I thought I could take it, for the experience. I’m making decent money. It’s been six months and I’ve just about had it. I’m sticking it out to the new year, then I’m getting out. The place I work for sometimes deals with government departments, and I’m OK with that. It also deals with banks, oil companies, arms manufacturers, mobile phone companies: some of the people I have to meet are so shitty I can’t believe it. I’m involved in the most outrageous propaganda, and responsible for some of the most patronising, offensive prose I’ve ever seen. Worse, most of my colleagues have been up to this for years and don’
