Social Responsibility in Advertising: A Marketing Communications Student Perspective

Although advertising has played a key role in bringing corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the public agenda on behalf of agency clients, little effort has been made to define what social responsibility means in advertising. A national survey of 1,045 advertising and marketing communications students from 176 colleges and universities were asked to write their own definitions of CSR. The majority of student responses fell within Carroll’s CSR categories, with the heaviest emphasis on Ethical and Legal responsibilities, a lighter emphasis on Economic responsibility, and the lightest emphasis on discretionary responsibility. Students exhibited “message myopia” in that they largely focused their comments on the creation of advertisements and to the exclusion of environmentalism; client, vendor, and employee relations; diversity or community involvement. Implications for educators of advertising and marketing communications are discussed in terms of how their efforts could help shape the advertising business/society relationship of the future.