Explain whether or not the New York’s Metropolitan Transportation authority proposal to sell naming rights to bridges and to rail and subway stations to corporate advertisers represents a win-win situation.

In the instance of selling advertising space on the rail and subway stations in New York City, I think this will be a win, win, win situation for all involved. The City of New York will benefit from the extra income, the advertisers will be able to have prime space to advertise and the residents of the city might be able to enjoy the benefits of the City of New York having the extra income. As long as the advertisers abide by all the rules and regulations of advertising there should be no problem.

In Rome, I think they have actually come up with an interesting way of using “dead” space. Perhaps by selling this advertising in this way and in these particular spaces, residents and tourist won’t actually see the ugly scaffolding as much. In selling advertising in this manner, the City of Rome is able to keep historically beautiful buildings and landmarks from becoming eyesores and obsolete.

Explain the ethics of mixing public and private imperatives in this way

Some of the ethical situations come into play, I think, when an advertiser may have a product to sell that may not be particularly in the best interest of the consumer. Although advertisers have the right to sell their products under the First Amendment Rights and the Federal Trade Commission keeps an eye on making sure the advertisers’ claim are accurate (Halbert/Ingulli), I think we often see times when advertisers heavily promote products that may not be in our best interest. Take for an example of all the fast food restaurants and their new products like the KFC Double Down chicken sandwich that was made using the two fried chicken patties as the bun with bacon and cheese as the filling. This advertising targets kids and young adults as their main consumers. The World Health Organization estimates that obesity affects 22 million children under the age of five and 30 percent of children six to eleven had become overweight or were at risk for being overweight (Halbert/Ingulli). Instead of heavily advertising this unhealthy type food, more efforts should be put into the development of healthy, attractive products that children will acquire a taste for versus these unhealthy items.

There is a definite fine line of what should and shouldn’t be advertised and when. Sexually explicit material shouldn’t be advertised in a way that it could be influential to young children and young adults. Although companies do have the right to advertise their wares there is also an ethical obligation to do what is right. Children are very impressionable and I think a lot of advertising is definitely aimed at this age group. Our text refers to the restricted advertising of tobacco in the United States because of a multi-billion dollar settlement of a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of most states to reimburse them for health care costs associated with caring for smokers (Halbert/Ingulli).