Assignment Problem:
Just need a SIMPLIFIED response to my discussion. Not a long drawn out explanation just your simple reply to my post. Please do not repeat or state exactly what I said in other words. Just your opinion/response to my post.
Tik Tok star Addison Rae collaborated as a celebrity appearance for a social media advertisement of a new bikini for adidas and gained a lot of controversy as a result. The ad was a picture of her with a bikini on with the top having the words "father", "son" and the bottoms "holy spirit". She even captioned her post "praying" which was found distasteful among a lot of her audience, especially ones pertaining to the religion she was mocking. The sexualization of these spirited words took a major offense to many Christian viewers, and other members of different religions for the lack of respect when making and posting this specific product. Backlash resulted immediately after the post, flooding her Instagram and Tik Tok post with commentary to take down the post and apologize for the distasteful action. As a result, the post and product line got removed.
Personally, I found the ad to be offensive and inappropriate and I don't have that religious affiliation. Sexualizing any sort of religion shows another level of disrespect considering she knows the impact and large audience she caters too. Adidas held responsibility as well as they could've refrained from doing the collaboration with her. While our generation is more sensitive towards specific issues, I think the ad industry should be held to a consumer's standards if it poses unethical behaviors. Obviously not ever consumer will agree to what those standards are but there is a sense of what is ethically corrupt, and those standards should be followed. The spectrum is determined based on the consumers relativism and idealism (Treise, 2013). This degree will show when consumers violate ethical norms, and the extent companies take to adhere to them.
References:
Treise, D., Weigold, M., Conna, J., Garrison, H. (2013) Ethics in Advertising: Ideological Correlates of Consumer Perceptions, Journal of Advertising