MSIX: ‘You can’t make free choices if you are addicted’ – How ethics in advertising are used for good… and evil

A respected professor has addressed the ethics that drive the decisions behind advertising, and how the science can be used for good or evil – often unintentionally so.

Speaking at the Mumbrella Marketing Science Ideas Xchange (MSIX) in Sydney on Wednesday morning, executive director of the Ethics Centre, Dr. Simon Longstaff, used the example of a gambling addict whose banking and wagering app data both showed how he burnt through $400,000 in worker’s compensation through a series of bets placed at an average of one each six seconds.

Both the bank and the wagering company could see these transactions, but neither one acted in the best interest of the gambling addict, who was quickly draining his finances, and couldn’t work due to injury.