Ethical Issues in Advertising in Pakistan : An Islamic Perspective

This research paper attempts to explore ethical issues in the contemporary advertising campaigns of controversial products in Pakistan from Shari’ah perspective. The paper aims to see the offensive behavior towards these advertisements and how it is affected by the religious perceptions, gender differences and nature of advertising appeals. A survey of 200 graduate students was conducted at COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. Questionnaire used for survey was consisted of three sections; first section contained a list of five controversial products, second contained a list of five advertising appeals and third section contained a list of fifteen items that tend to measure the religious perceptions of the respondents. Data was coded into SPSS and tested for its validity and reliability. Descriptive statistics as well as correlations and t-tests were applied to analyze the data. Level of offensiveness towards advertisements of controversial products was found to be significantly associated with religious perceptions and nature of advertising appeals. Nudity and sexist images as advertising appeals were found to have significant association with the level of offensiveness of the consumers. This research leads to important managerial implications and identifies important ethical issues in advertising that are contradictory to the injunctions of Islam