Life is a sale; merely every word perpetrating from our mouths to every commodity is designed to sell in one fashion or another. Although a person may not be the sales person or marketer of the year, the words expressed are in one shape or form selling someone else. Whether they are intentionally selling a product or a service, moreover in a more canvassed reinforcement of the preceding statement, "merely every word perpetrating from our mouths is a sale" selling principals, thought, opinion, ideologies, or themselves. Whether this is a subtle or clear and apparent obtrusive sale, "life is a sale" is an ardent fact. We are selling and advertising with the intent to close some type of deal, we sell our thought processes, our beliefs, to the degree the very essence of who we are.

Many remember the famous line from the movie Jerry Maguire, "You got me at hello". Did Tom Cruise?s character, Jerry Maguire intend to advertise and close his future wife with such a simple statement precisely at the time he stated, "Hello". It is all a matter of perception and connection from the perspective of the recipient of communicative advertising. Remember asking out and courting you girlfriend or wife; advertising to close the deal. Teaching your children; advertising to close the deal. Speaking to colleagues about politics, business, religion, small talk; all advertising to close the deal. Advertising started from the moment the first two people began to communicate.

The narrow specific methodologies of advertising have transgressed and honed in on product and service brand awareness, to brand recognition, to brand awareness through means of advertising and have changed in scope as the industry of advertising commences to its realistic format of today.

The notion of ethical advertising varies from one marketer / advertiser to another, similarly, to one consumer to another. Advertising in its infancy as a commercial sector of industry, was an open playing field. Advertising campaigns, since the inception of advertising various ethical and legal promotional advertising campaigns designed to capture and penetrate a certain marketplace. As is the case with good promotional programs there are always intertwined those with the not so good commercialized campaigns. For instance, unethical and illegal practices such as, "The miracle healing cures all potions" fad, to in today?s era, spamming via the Internet. "Over time, a wide variety of rules and laws have been enacted to regulate advertising activity. The Federal Trade Commission is a major regulatory body in the U.S. which examines issues of fairness in advertising" (Zinkhan, 1994, p. 1).

Two fads which come to mind is the peddler promoting and advertising a miracle drug to cure any and all ailments and the pet rock. "A fad is ?unpredictable, short-lived, and without social, economic, and political influence" (Kotler & Keller, 2006, p. 77). One illegal and unethical and one ethical and legal, both successful advertising campaigns, depending on how one views the ideology of a successful fad. The promotional efforts may not have been long lasting but are recognized throughout history for ages to come.

Around the time of the 1920?s to date, marketers and advertisers have perpetrated various methodologies to quantify and qualify its population segment and drive targeted traffic to its product or service line. The advent of the Internet and technological advancements have made it possible for organizations to capture a narrow specific market segment and have made it possible to hone in on targeted audiences through mediums of startegized marketing advertising campaigns.
 

Past and current decision making processes on behalf of marketing models and advertising differ from person to person. These variances of ethical codes within the realm have been in existence since, as reflected in the introduction, two people began to communicate. Advertising and marketing has circum to the point as one of the most intricate aspects of commercial trade.

Precise ethics may vary, however, ethical forms of conduct have existed since inception, to 1994 at the time Zirkhan?s article, to today and continuously in the future. "When making these difficult moral choices, there are many places to turn for guidance, including: personal conscience, company policy, industry standards, governmental law or regulation, and organized religion" (Lane, King, & Russell, 2008, p. 11). Let us take for instance, geocentric or global surveys and inquiries as to the validity and acceptance of a product. Although, true statistical analysis will be derived on closed business; sales, the statistical inferences simply by compiling data from large sources of populous can be instrumental in all aspects of advertising and marketing any product or service. Rather than canvassing entire populations an organization can randomly select sampling of potential purchases or even distribute promote actual campaigns to a narrower population and determine the validity of such advertising campaign. "A sample is considered to be random if every item in the population from which the sample is drawn is equally likely to be picked" (Thurman, 2008, p. 65). The question is it ethical to just randomly compile data? The ethical codes will vary from marketer to marketer. Is it legal to randomly compile data? The legal aspect is simply governed by permission granted marketing called opt-in.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Federal Communication Commission (FCC), Mobil Marketing Association (MMA), amongst other various regulatory agencies, all have various rules, regulations and laws, governing advertisers from advertising and marketing under false pretences, spamming, and federal and state do not call lists. The list goes on from the legal aspect of advertising and marketing to the ethical practices in marketing. As technology and information dissemination advances, marketing and advertising methodologies enhance, likewise, legislation and laws governing the marketing and advertising industry are in constant change.

The advent of the Internet and technological advancements and how data and voice are transmitted it has made a cost prohibitive task extensively simple and cost effective to maximize returns on investment marketing and advertising dollars. This also allows for targeted traffic for any business.

The most effective, legal and ethical methodology is of course a hybrid with a cross integrated marketing method which utilizes various facets of proven advertising trends in the past to current this means traditional, online and cell phone push pull marketing strategy. Worldwide Associates MaxTech platforms utilize turn-key traditional print, online web and multimedia marketing and cell phone marketing. County to Global learned behavioral patterns included transcending to a new trend. "A trend is a direction or sequence of events that has some momentum and durability" (Kotler & Keller, 2006, p. 77). Transforming to a paradigm shift and megatrend, "Megatrends have been described as ?large social, economic, political and technological changes [that] are slow to form, and once in place, they influence us for some time-between seven and ten years, or longer" (Kotler & Keller, 2006, p. 77).

References:

Kotler , P. & Keller, K.L. (2006). Marketing management. (12^{th edition). NJ: Prentice}

Hall.

Lane, W. R., Whitehill King, K. & Russell, J. T. (2008). Kleppner?s advertising

procedure. (17th edition). NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Thurman, P. W. (2008). MBA fundamentals statistics. New York, New York: Kaplan

Publishing.

Zinkhan, G.M. (September, 1994). Advertising ethics: Emerging methods and trends. Journal of Advertising, 23 (3), 1-4.