c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Business executive Joseph Mallof asked an audience of advertising critics recently to consider Nike’s”I am Tiger Woods”TV spot. “All those different little kids saying, `I’m Tiger Woods. I’m Tiger Woods.’ Doesn’t that give you a small thrill? I’m proud to be a part of that promotional industry,”said Mallof, president of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., the company that makes insect sprays and household cleaning products.

But glimmers of uplift were the exception at the ethics seminar where Mallof spoke. Most of those at the Dayton, Ohio, gathering focused on global marketing’s moral downside. “The whole notion of ethics in advertising _ some of our more cynical friends might say _ is an oxymoron,”said Brother Ray Fitz, president of the University of Dayton.”But we must try to bring a tradition of moral discourse into the very important arena of advertising.” Sister Angela Ann Zukowski, a top adviser to the Vatican on media, told the University of Dayton seminar that advertising is”a relentless hammer to bash our heads in, to replace all that is best and truest with the instant and the most profitable. The whole world must be kept in a constant state of dissatisfaction.”She added flatly:”Communication which deliberately sets out to exploit human weakness for profit is in every sense a serious sin, an affront to God and humanity.” The Vatican is concerned enough with the moral erosion it associates with advertising that three cardinals have asked Zukowski about visiting the United States to meet with advertising executives on industry ethics.

Zukowski, president of Unda-World, the international Catholic association for broadcasters and communicators, plans to construct a Web site to build a study guide to teach about such ethics.

Much of this gets a chilly reception from the advertising community. There were few compliments earlier this year for the Pontifical Council on Social Communications when it released”Ethics in Advertising,”a 35-page document Zukowski helped draft. “I think it is more of the kind of lecturing authoritarian nonsense that will put people off, particularly young adults, and I think that’s a shame,”Martin Macdonald, managing partner at WestWayne, Atlanta, told Advertising Age.

And Donny Deutsch, CEO of Deutsch, New York, said,”I think the Catholic Church has enough problems, and they shouldn’t be worried about advertising. They should stick to religion, and we’ll stick to advertising.” Responding to Deutsch’s remarks, the Rev. Carl K. Moeddel, auxiliary bishop of Cincinnati, declared:”Whenever the reaction is `The church should stay out of this,’ what it always says to me is the church should have become involved much sooner. “We need to do what we did,”Moeddel continued.”We produce a document that lifts up our principles and values, then we incorporate that into what all our institutions and agencies do. Finally, we acquaint as many Catholics as possible with this document so the church _ the Catholic people _ bring these values into the institutions where they work.” F. Byron Nahser, president of Nahser Agency/Advertising in Chicago, is deeply concerned about the avalanche of marketing to children. It grew 50 percent from 1993 to 1996, reaching $1.5 billion in ad sales, according to Competitive Media Reporting.

Nahser, who is executive in residence at DePaul University, quoted author and clinical psychologist Mary Pipher:”No one ad is so bad. But the combination of 400 ads a day creates in children a combination of narcissism, entitlement and dissatisfaction.” Leslie Savan, author of”The Sponsored Life,”says if one counts all logos, labels and announcements, the average individual encounters 16,000 ads each day. Nahser noted that the average American child has her own entry in the massive data banks of marketers by the time she is 12.

The fallout includes families who live with relentless whining for a trip to McDonald’s and parents unable to find children’s underwear free of cartoon characters and logos.

Mallof and Ron Bess, president of the Chicago-based ad agency Foote Cone and Belding, agreed child-marketing requires more scrutiny and care. But Bess said the Vatican is unrealistic in hoping advertisers will trade only in facts, and leave out desires. “Our view is that instincts and emotions are part of human nature, part of what makes us respond,”Bess said.”We use images that appeal in emotional, not just rational, ways.” (STORY MAY END HERE _ OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS.)

Zukowski, who said advertising is taking over global cultural narratives, recalled how her niece spent Christmas two years ago in a blizzard of Disney’s”Lion King”products. “She got the dress, she got the hat, she got the shoes, video and books,”Zukowski reported.”She got the characters as stuffed dolls in different sizes. When I didn’t know the name of one, she asked me if I knew anything.” A new wave of products, and story lines, accompanied her niece through”The Hunchback of Notre Dame,””Cinderella,”and now”Hercules,”Zukowski said.

Nahser said some marketers to children are pushing questionable items. One is Hotlix, a California candy company that sells a margarita-style treat that comes with salt and a tequila-flavored pop with an edible worm inside it.

In his own career, Nahser said he has rejected work he found unethical three times.

One was a veal company that kept calves in such terrible conditions that Nahser’s company gave up the account. Another was a coffee-whitener promotion that, Nahser concluded, was pushing junk. The third was a toy company that wanted an”Apocalypse Now”-type campaign to promote its new military toy helicopter. “I wouldn’t do a `blow ’em up’ commercial. I kept trying to get them to change it to a medical helicopter,”Nahser said.”They said, `Ron, remember the Army jeep you had us change into a forest ranger vehicle? That’s still sitting in our warehouse.”

MJP END LONG