Commitment to Ethical Advertising and Marketing

Classic City Consulting believes in promoting our services in a fair, honest, and transparent manner. As such, we have adopted the following guidelines for our marketing team to use when developing campaigns, content, and collateral. 

The guidelines below are based on the Eight Principles of Advertising Ethics developed by the Institute for Advertising Ethics:

• Advertising, public relations, marketing communications, news, and editorial all share a common objective of truth and high ethical standards in serving the public.
• Advertising, public relations, and all marketing communications professionals have an obligation to exercise the highest personal ethics in the creation and dissemination of commercial information to consumers.
• Advertisers should clearly distinguish advertising, public relations and corporate communications from news and editorial content and entertainment, both online and offline. As we continue to blur the line between commercial communications and editorial content, consumers are increasingly being misled and treated unethically. To avoid consumer confusion and mistrust, the industry must strive to clearly separate paid advertising from actual news.
• Advertisers should clearly disclose all material conditions, such as payment or receipt of a free product, affecting endorsements in social and traditional channels, as well as the identity of endorsers, all in the interest of full disclosure and transparency. The popularity of social media and word-of-mouth marketing raises questions about the credibility of content. Advertisers must be transparent about whether bloggers are expressing their own opinions or are being compensated by a brand. There must also be full disclosure regarding the authenticity of comments on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.
• Advertisers should treat consumers fairly based on the nature of the audience to whom the ads are directed and the nature of the product or service advertised.
• Advertisers should never compromise consumers’ personal privacy in marketing communications, and their choices as to whether to participate in providing their information should be transparent and easily made. 
• Advertisers should follow federal, state and local advertising laws, and cooperate with industry self-regulatory programs for the resolution of advertising practices.
• Advertisers and their agencies, and online and offline media, should privately discuss potential ethical concerns, and members of the team creating ads should be given permission to internally express their ethical concerns.