Tag: ethics

Spirit Airlines made news last week with an idea to sell advertising space on the aprons of its flight attendants. Specifically, logos for alcoholic beverage brands would be placed on aprons. Such a move would not only create advertising revenues, but it could stimulate sales of products on board with the additional brand exposure. The head of Spirit’s flight attendants’ union complained about the ad proposal, saying “we’re not walking billboards.”

The plan to put advertising on part of employees’ uniforms (which an apron would be part of a flight attendant’s uniform, at least at certain times) raises the issue of whether employees should be expected to be involved in promoting other brands. Employees are perhaps the number one “billboard” for their own companies, but should they be involved in advertising other brands? In the case of the airlines, there appear to be other pieces of real estate on a plane available to sell as ad space: overhead bin doors, seat backs, and lavatories come to mind. Involving employees in ad placements could put them in an uncomfortable situation. What if a flight attendant is asked to wear an apron with an ad for a product she/he does not use? Worse, what if the advertised brand is one the employee opposes for ethical or moral reasons?

Employees should not be put in a position of having to display other companies’ ads on their bodies in any way. There may be no limits to such a practice: Nurses with ads for health care products on their uniforms? Package delivery personnel advertising for retailers on their uniforms? Let’s hope not.

Link: Media Buyer Planner – “Spirit Flight Attendants: We’re Not Walking Billboards – New Aprons Not Cool”

A general rule of business is that an industry is better off if it is able to self-regulate its practices rather than come under governmental regulation. This view is not meant to advocate a lawless society, but rather it is a view that businesses understand it is in their best interests to act ethically. Ultimately, customers will be the final arbiter, passing judgment on firms and deciding whether to business with them.

Advocating the position of self-regulation is brought up again because of what is about to happen in the U.K. Beginning later this month, a new law makes it an offense for companies to orchestrate the sending of messages online without identifying the origin of the messages. The law is designed to crack down on contrived word-of-mouth marketing campaigns in which the message sender appears to be a non-corporate entity but actually is a firm sending messages for commercial purposes. The U.K. joins other European countries that enacted the same law at the beginning of this year.

While it is laudible that a government be concerned enough about its citizens to pass laws intended to protect them, this area seems to be a low priority. Consumers are more saavy than ever, and a disingenuous marketing effort can create more problems for a firm than any benefits it could potentially create. An unforgiving marketplace would exact more punishment on a company that tries to deceive its audience using seeded marketing messages than any regulatory agency could.

AdAge: “U.K. Cracks Down on Word-of-Mouth with Tough Restrictions”