Brand D1 - legal and ethical

Legal and Ethical

We are going to talk about the legal and ethical issues that we need to consider when making our own drink brand. When designing and advertising a new product we need to be looking at the effect can be created from what we put on the designs and adverts. 

Offensive content

For my brand name i have used a word that is from another country, this means i need to make sure it is appropriate to use this word and that it is not going to be offensive or rude to any of the views from any culture. That is one ethical issue we need to remember that it has to be appropriate and it isn't going to offend anyone in ant culture. This can cause viewers to not buy the product and try to bring down the company if it shouldn't be out in shops. My brand name is a word in Arabic which is significant from me because of where my family if from and i personally thought that this word was beautiful to use, i needed to research the full meaning of the word before i could use it. 

This is because it could be an offensive word to people in my culture and that means people are going to want to get rid of the brand/ product and this doesn't do well for the representation of the company. Thinking about this issue but if it was in the adverts, we don't want there to be any content in the tv advert or social media advert that is going to cause a negative reaction from the audience. 

Language

The next issue is poor taste in wording/ offensives language, this is definitely something i should consider because it is an important issue when the target audience is families and student. This is ages such as 13 and higher which means they might have heard offensive language however, we don't want them to be influenced and we don't want them to think it is okay to use that kind of language which means it should not be used in any of the designs of the products and it shouldn't be used in any of the advertising. 

An example of this is that there was a "booking.com" advert that used the word "booking" instead of an offensive swear word, this then caused viewers to question and take it in the wrong way and so the advert was banned for it being sensitive for the viewers to listen too. Some viewers could be children which means that there needs to be precautions as too what languages and wording is used in  the tv adverts and the social media posts. 

Advertising to children 

This all tags into the advertising to children and harmful content, what i mean by that is that when you are advertising a product you need to be wary if it is advertised to children and what they will see. My product is for everyone including children so i know that i need to make sure i include something that is child friendly and then make sure there is nothing in the advert that is going to be offensive and inappropriate for children. 

Things that are harmful to the viewers can effect the company, you need to make sure there is nothing on the adverts and in the designs that are harmful to the viewers such as including violence with in the adverts. Having bad things on the adverts can influence people that are watching to do they things because they might think it is okay to do that but its not. This is why we don't include anything that is harmful to anyone and that is okay for children to view if it is adverts on medias such as social media or TV. 

Copyright

An issue that also occurs is copyright, this is something that we need to think about in our designs and advert. When looking at inspiration and looking through creating designs it is easy to create something similar to another product which is what we shouldn't do. This is because people have copyright protections on their designs which is what we need if we don't want our designs or products being stolen by other creators. It also allows creators to get paid for their work if someone wants to buy the imagine or design, this is good if you want other people to use your work and they can also promote your work for you. Copyright is good if yo want all your work to be protected as well which means if i use copyright on my drinks brand and designs then one else can use that unless i allow them. 

This also relates to permissions to be allowed to film and work in certain areas incase you can and you need permissions to be allowed to do things in those certain areas. You need permissions if you use things like fonts and images so you don't run into any copyright issues, you need to make sure that you can use certain colours, fonts and images because if you take other peoples designs or assets of a design they can definitely pull it up as a copyright issues and permission issue. If your logo and design looks like another big brand or could have the same colour scheme, the same font, it could even look like a small knock off brand, this is what you need to look out for because if someone doesn't like that it looks like their brand they could sue you for copyright. 

Misrepresentation and misleading information

For the next issue we could come across is misrepresentation and misleading information, we need to make sure that our advert, design and product is all truthful and honest. There is an example that has happened before where some thought that red bull actually gave you wings when you drank it and they complained about the advert and product being wrong and not telling the truth. This is a big issue because even if we mention something that is not all true people can sometimes pick up on it and it can cause a lot of issues for the company. If you say a product is going to make you stop aging and its magic you need to be truth with that and if people see it is not magic they are going to complain and not buy that product anymore. 

You need to make sure that everything you say the product will do so in our advert we say that Satara is sweet tangy and refreshing so we need to make sure that we can achieve that in our product. some people wont be happy with it but if we stick to regulations like ASA and be truthful of our product we will be successful. I will make sure that in the advertising we can meet everything we need and to make sure everything is what we say it does. 

Violence/ behavior

Violence and behavior within an advert or design can be an issue for the company as it could persuade people to do those sorts of actions and think that it is fine to do that. This could be like advertising a product to children and their being violence within it and then the children thinking that it is okay to be like that. It is advertising dangerous actions and it is giving the company a bad reputation if they are encouraging things like violence and bad behavior. An example of this could be the During David Mirkin's tenure as showrunner, he was asked by the Fox network not to do any more Itchy & Scratchy cartoons due to the amount of violence in them. In response, the show produced "Itchy & Scratchy Land". 

This shows that they had to stop presenting so much violence in their cartoon due to the fact that children could copy this behavior which is an issue and could come up with complaints from parents that don't want their kids seeing such violence. This is why in a media product you need to make sure there is nothing on the advert or design that is going to influence them to do something bad.

Royalties

Royalties are payments that someone has on their song on their advert that has a royalty fee so if you want top use their song then you have to pay the fee that they ask for or else you can use their song and it becomes an issue if you have and not paid, this is the same as copyright but with a song for example. You need to be careful that you don't use someone else's song or a song that has any royalty/ copyright fee. If i was to use a song on my advert to promote a product then i need to make sure i am allowed to use it without having to pay if that's what i don't want to do. 

Conclusion 

In conclusion i think that thinking about all the different types of legal and ethical issues is so important for the company and advertising. If we don't have anything like this in place for us then the companies will put anything and everything they want on their designs and adverts but that's when people start  seeing content that shouldn't be shown and then people start not buying things from those companies and everything can became nothing if the viewers don't like it. This is why they put legal and ethical issues in place and try to stop things that shouldn't be on advertising or shouldn't be advertised and they are stopped.