Ethics are the moral standards against which behavior is judged.

Key areas of debate regarding ethics and advertising are:

Truth in advertising
Advertising to children Advertising controversial products

Truth in Advertising
Deception is making false or misleading statements but

puffery (commercial exaggeration) is legal. Ex. A manufacturer claiming a laundry pdt. Which can remove grass stains is exposed to legal sanctions if the pdt. can not perform the task while in other case a pdt. Claiming to be The Best Detergent in the world however is perfectly with in the rights to employ superlatives.
Cannot legislate against emotional appeals

HLLs Clinic All Clear Dandruff shampoo claimed that it had ZPTO, the special ingredient in Clinic All Clear that stops dandruff. This claim was found to be untrue since ZPTO is a micro biocide, when in reality, dandruff is known to be caused by several other factors, besides, microbes. HLLs multi-crore research wing clearly overlooked this aspect. The advertisement has been withdrawn.

Novartis India claimed that their disposable contact lenses ensure there is no protein build-up. This claim was found to be totally false. The truth is that build up is a natural biological phenomenon with all contact lenses. The ad was discontinued.

IIPM has been in the limelight for a few years now and certainly not for the right reasons. IIPM has been under the scanner for its frivolous ads claiming its tie-ups with the top business schools in the world like Cambridge and UC Berkley to name a few most claims about associations with renowned universities has proved to be false

Advertising to ChildrenIssues
Advertising promotes superficiality and

materialism in children Children are inexperienced and easy prey Persuasion to children creates child-parent conflicts

Most companies, that have made controversial ads that have either been banned from transmission or made to be released in highly censored forms, have recorded highest turnovers and improved market shares post the release of the so called inconsumable ads.

In 2008, Jet Airways put up a hoarding In Mumbai that read "We've changed" and to this Kingfisher replied "We made them change. The Change - Both airlines introduced daily flights to New York. Jet Airways could not involve the courts, but they almost immediately removed the hoarding

Rin in its new ad was bold about its reference to Tide brand not only by using parts of the Tide ad tagline but also by prominently featuring a tide packet The Ad is not banned but has certainly raised questions of whether Rin is correct or wrong in trying to sell its product by hurting the brand value of Tide

Explicitly referring to another companys product in an ad, either by boldly referring to the product or by using parts of its tagline, or any other means through which an attempt is made to hurt the companys brand value, is considered strictly out of the rule books of fair advertising.

The Cadbury Temptations ad released in 2002 on Indian Independence day, did nothing but aggravate the sentiments of thousands of people. The ads tagline read too good to share and was embedded in bold in the Kashmir area of the Indian map painted red to depict its war-stricken nature

(www.IndianPangaLeague.com) Year: 2010 These are some of the most funny and explicit IPL advertisements by Virgin Mobile. The idea is to take panga with a rival team and get dirty in a war of words. The concept was marketed as IPL or Indian Panga League at www.IndianPangaLeague.com, the ads are mostly beeped and names of actual players are used in every other joke.

Year:2009

To see the same deity - Goddess Lakshmi that millions in India and world over worship in their homes, seated on a meat sandwich in a print ad from Burger king was considered truly baffling and disrespectful

Tanvir Mahmood Ahmeds picture stood out so boldly amongst the Big and Famous Indians namely Kapil Dev, Sehwag, Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi

In auto sector, Volkswagen also had to discontinue the commercial for its car-Polo as it portrayed violence against animals. In case of J&J, the Consumer Complaint Council asked the company to modify the advertisement for sanitary napkins which compared its product to another pack that appeared like a rival's product. AXN and FTV have been banned for two months

Advertising Standard Council of India Ministry of Information and Broadcasting ASCI Consumer Complaint Council Advertising Codes Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969