The ethics of advertising in the messages of Chinese advertising organizations

Subject of the study – the principles of ethical standards in advertising messages of Chinese advertising organizations, as well as the problematic areas of their practical implementation. The paper examines how self-regulatory organizations in China formulate and establish ethical requirements for advertising activities, what values and standards they proclaim, and to what extent these standards meet the contemporary challenges of the advertising industry. Codes of professional ethics adopted by leading industry associations are analyzed, along with their influence on the everyday practice of creating advertising messages and the correlation between prohibitive and positive norms. Consumer expectations regarding advertising ethics are studied, as well as moral conflicts arising between the main participants in the advertising process – advertisers, advertising agencies, and mass media. The author identifies systemic shortcomings of existing ethical regulators and suggests possible ways to overcome them. Methodology – analytical review and comparative analysis of the Advertising Law of the PRC and the codes of CAA, CICAA, CBBA, CAIAD, applying systematization and generalization of ethical standards. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time ethical norms from the codes of all major self-regulatory organizations in China are systematically presented and compared, providing a comprehensive picture of the state of advertising ethics in the country. It is established that most provisions of the codes are prohibitive in nature, answering the question of "what should not be done," but practically contain no positive guidelines and do not provide answers to the questions of "what should be done" and "why." This circumstance hinders the formation of stable ethical beliefs among market participants and limits the possibilities for industry self-regulation. The necessity of building a system of ethical values based on applied ethics with the adoption of a "model of applying principles" is substantiated, which would allow resolving moral conflicts and taking into account the interests of both advertising producers and consumers. The results can be used by marketers in creating ethical advertising messages and in developing new codes. Prospects for further research are related to the analysis of specific advertising campaigns for their compliance with ethical principles.