As the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) sets about the task of creating an industry-wide code of conduct, “We already have taken a deep dive into a variety of existing resources,” reports Scott McDonald, the organization’s president/CEO.
One embarrassing finding from the preliminary research: After the examination of some 40 different ethical guidelines from different associations and ARF member companies, one element seemed to be missing: Somehow, somewhere along the line, the ethicists had forgotten to include the consumer.
As McDonald noted in a keynote address to the ARF’s 2018 AUDIENCExSCIENCE (AxS) Conference, “We asked if they had...