Research Project nameBUS 642
Loay AlnajiOct 6, 2014

Research Project
I.Introduction: When thinking of the final project I looked at something that I have done some research on but would like to get more into the ideas of the primes. Through some of the classes I have taken here are Ashford I have found that advertising and marketing is interesting. Though advertising and marketing is interesting it is not without its problems. I am a person that uses humor to lighten the mode with people but is some research that I have saw there tends to be a problem if it is not handled correctly. This led me to the idea of morals in marketing and advertising. Because marketing and advertising is something that most companies use and rely on for improvements in sales numbers. I look to research the morals that are established in marketing and advertising.
II.Literature Review: Now management deals with issues of ethics on day to day bases and can find that if these issues are not handled correctly they can find that it can lead to political and legal concerns. When dealing with marketing and advertising a manager must look at all aspects of the viewing communities and make sure that these dilemmas are not present. My research question will be “Is there a higher level of ethics while dealing in the marketing and advertising of products?” this will take into account the advertising and marketing that is conducted in today’s market and look to the past to show how unethical advertising and marketing would look in today’s market. The hypothesis is “Advertisers and marketers must hold themselves to a higher level of understanding of market knowledge because of the level of offensiveness has taken to new highs.”
In reading Humorous Threat Persuasion in Advertising: The Effects of Humor, Threat Intensity, and Issue Involvement I learned that market can take many different forms and show how threat marketing can be more accepted when it is introduced with humor. “What is unique about this ad is that even though it exemplifies threat persuasion, humor is present” (Yoon and Tinkham, 2013, p. 30). This shows that within advertising we can see that by adding humor the offensiveness is reduced. Directly connected to ethical behavior in advertising, we see that the advertising group has reduced its offensiveness while maintaining the point. Because marketing and advertising is held on a large platform, it is important that all participants know and conduct them in an ethical manner. Payne and Pressley elaborate on marketing ethics and having a standard with “one that can be used regardless of the venue or specialty of the marketing professional” (Payne and Pressley, 2013, p. 55). There are codes of ethics in business and these are governed but to look at a better way of managing marketing and advertising would be needed.
III.Methods
Backing research: before any research is done information from other research studies will be gathered to better understand where the study is at this time. In Neyland and Simakova research we see that there is a limit to marketing ethics. Ethics is something that can change with environments and this is why it is smart to know ones audience. The information provided from Neyland and Simakova will help to build questions for my questionnaire but also answer some of the questions of the study. the limits of ethics in marketing are that of social and political in nature. Neyland and Simakova state “consumers may recognize their own image in the product being developed, the process hence acquiring social, political and ethical repercussions” (Neyland and Simakova, 2009, p. 778). This means that the consumers look at products and derive their own idea of how the product is created from advertising. This is why it is smart for advertisers to look at all of these aspects when advertising. While looking over Payne and Pressley’s studies I found good established sources for standards in ethics in business and marketing.