Ethics in PR and Advertising

Ethics are something we need. If we didn’t have them, people wouldn’t act how we wanted them to, and let’s face it – we all want things to go according to plan. Because we all hate chaos, ethics bring us together by making us compromise on what’s successful and what isn’t.

 

After looking over the ethics involved in each of the different organizations like PRSA and Arthur Page Society I was fairly impressed with the consistency between the organizations, but there were a few spots that I was a tad surprised by.

First off, under the first ethic code, honesty, I thought it was strange that Global Alliance and PRSA had basically the same definition, except it seemed that PRSA’s suggested always advancing the interests of your company and the public, where Global Alliance seemed to be saying always advance client and employer interests. Not only does that seem unethical, it just seems weird to have the same definition verbatim and then take the last part off.

For advocacy and expertise, I actually liked the Arthur Page stance on it. The others are good, but the Arthur Page code gives two strong pieces of information. Manage for tomorrow and create goodwill. I think those are both very important aspects of ethics in the business world. As a professional, I feel like those are two things you should always be looking to achieve.

PRSA wins the ethics code battle for loyalty. The organization really hits the nail on the head by ensuring an ethical person balances work priorities with that of the public, who the company it represents ultimately serves. The customer is not always right, but in most situations, they need to be for the sake of good standing with the public.

I actually laughed out loud at the Council of PR Firms’ stance on fairness. “Charge a fair price for PR services.” Really? Nothing about the public, employees or other firms? PRSA has this one right. For shame, Council, for shame.

I think I’m most surprised by the stance of everyone that hiring away from your competition is a bad thing. I understand that you don’t want to ruin the company and go after its employees to damage the company. That would be unethical. But to me, if your company can offer someone more pay, better benefits or just a better chance to get ahead, the person should know that. 

It shouldn’t be whether or not they work for your competition. But instead, it should be about who can provide the individual with the best chance to succeed. Your company can always match the offers made if the employee is that valuable. It happens in the sports world all the time. Team A offers Player_01 more money than Team B wants to pay for him. Is it ethical that they stole him away with more money? No one thinks so. But if it’s in the professional world it’s different? It just doesn’t seem right to me that something like that would be unethical.

All in all, I think the ethics codes do what they’re designed to. They set guidelines for an industry with few legal obligations. Do they have to be followed literally? No, probably not – but they provide a fairly good outline of what the professional world should think and which situation calls for which set of ethics.