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Abstract This study investigates the perceptions of familiar advertising controversies that are obtained from a diverse sample of 292 consumers. Topics from two broad categories of advertising practices are investigated: targeting practices and message strategies. For each topic, consumer perceptions are analyzed as a function of the participants' moral ideologies of idealism and relativism, dimensions obtained from the Ethics Position Questionnaire. Results show that consumers believe advertising often violates broad ethical norms. In addition, the degree to which consumers judge advertising as ethical or unethical varies as a function of their relativism and idealism.
Treise et al. (Thu,) studied this question.