Tobacco Ethicality In Popular Media

There is an increasing number of employees, managers and consumers who expect companies, especially the large multinationals to go beyond their conventional role of producing, creating, selling and packaging for the purposes of a profit (Yach & Bettcher, 2000). The view of the public on the use of tobacco has elicited much debate given that most people view tobacco as a killer and need not be advertised. The tobacco industry offers a classic setting to study how ethical the marketing practices are conducted in general (Henriksen, 2012). Despite being legal, a number of legal elements of their marketing strategies have elicited intense public debate and scrutiny in terms of whether the practices are necessary for a possibly harmful product, and therefore, raise ethical questions (Dewhirst, 2012). Apparently, any debate regarding marketing practices of tobacco ethicality in popular media have only represented the

Ethicality has remained an issue when marketers, particularly of tobacco target the vulnerable segments of consumers for products that are often viewed as being harmful in the eyes of the people (Callard, 2010). Ethicists are often concerned with businesses actively being involved in targeting vulnerable consumers to psychological, physical or economic harm in the marketing transactions (Jones et al., 2007). In the tobacco marketplace, vulnerable customers are always the less educated consumers, adolescents, lower income earners, and children (Henriksen, 2012). Tobacco, according to the World Health Organisation is considered a harmful product due to its potentiality of causing physical harm in terms of causing cancer and subsequent amputation; economical harm in terms of the cost for buying or treatment of tobacco-related ailments; or psychological harm in terms of feeling addicted (WHO,