Social media marketing and native advertising have over time developed as the major ways of businesses to relay information and reach larger target audiences. A person’s autonomy is the ability of an individual to make certain authentic decisions about one’s life, which may be largely influenced by the amount of information they get exposed to on a daily basis (Broadview Press, 2018). Marketing through social media and native advertising have proved as the major ways through which companies give their information to people, sometimes without their consent. It has also been proven that most of the advertising done can be deceptive to the target audiences as they fail to differentiate between business and advertising. Canadian Code of Advertising Standards developed certain guidelines that disclose the financial relations between the advertising company and the influencer, to stop the deceptions that arise from the adverts (Buckner, 2016).
Native advertising and social media marketing can be morally problematic
Certain advertising strategies as used on social media and native advertising can be morally problematic, as they give deceptive information to the online users, without giving them the capacity to make decisions according to their own ethical reasoning. Online advertising can also lead to violation of an online users’ privacy as the ads can keep appearing on their timelines, constantly interrupting their own opinions about what they think of the particular products or services. Over time, the use of social media advertising and native marketing has been deceptive as they only seek to grab the attention of their target audience, without necessarily giving the real product use (Oliver, 2014). It is important that native advertising and social media marketing disclose what their products are all about, so as to reduce the levels of deception that comes with these kind of marketing.
Works Cited
Broadview press. “Business Ethics Chapter 10 Glossary” Broadview press, 2018,
sites.broadviewpress.com/businessethics/business-ethics-chapter-10-glossary/
Buckner, Dianne. “Deceptive marketing works” CBC, Radio- Canada, 29 November, 2016,
www.cbc.ca/news/business/deceptive-marketing-social-media-1.3854124.
Oliver, John. “Native advertising” YouTube, directed by John Oliver, 3 August 2014,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc
