¶ … advertisement by Nike that states, "if you let me play sports..." And proceeds to list benefits and advantages of participation in athletics is misleading, at best participates in lies of omission, and should be removed as unethical advertising material.
Current national scandals in the corporate world, like WorldCom or Enron, have shown that Americans are concerned about complete honesty and transparency in our world. Consumers have a right to know if a product can harm them, like cigarettes, and they have a right to know all of the possible side effects that come along with a product, like a medication. This has led to an increased amount of information that must be disclosed to the consumer -- cigarettes must carry warning labels, medications must list potential adverse effects.
The Nike ad lists several positive attributes of participation in athletics, from a lower teen pregnancy rate to increased self-confidence. Their facts are not incorrect or untrue, these are proven phenomena among young athletes. However, their sin of omission is in that they list only the positive "side effects" of participation in athletics. Like a medication that does not warn users of all the potential side effects, Nike does not mention the negative behaviors often associated with athletes at a higher rate than non-athletes.
One report has linked student athletes with significantly higher rate of aggressive behavior, noting that college athletes are named in 20% of all campus assault complaints, but only constitution 2% of the student population (Mak 2004). This is an enormous discrepancy in Nike's ad campaign; does a lower teen pregnancy among athletes rate an increased rate of criminal, aggressive behavior?
The Nike ad is not incorrect or blatantly lying; however, it is still highly unethical for the corporation to only note the positive attributes of athletes. The ad should be pulled and future ads should give consumers the whole picture about participation in youth athletics.
Work Cited
Mak, Katherine. "Are Athletes More Abusive Than the Rest of the Population?" In Hopkins Undergraduate Research Journal, issue 3, 2004. Accessed online at http://www.jhu.edu/hurj/spotlight-mak.html
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