It's really quite amazing how many articles you can find on ethical issues dealing with pizza. Try it, type in pizza-ethics in a google search engine and you will find many articles that claim it is unethical for a government official to host a "pizza lunch-in", or people blogging about their "pizza-ethics" in deciding what is proper to top a pizza. My favorite article I have found thus far in dealing with pizza ethics involves the top selling pizza store in America, Pizza Hut.
Dated in 2005, "Pizza Hut Ethics" describes the concern one has on the commercials that Pizza Hut was airing at the time. I can't seem to find out who specifically wrote the article, but it is from a website called Ethics Scoreboard. They seem to do articles that relate, obviously, with ethics and every type of industry out there. Facebook ethics, cartoon ethics, ethics of "The Dark Knight", basketball ethics, and the list goes on and on. It's kind of cool actually, but my goodness, everything is ethical!
Anyhow, in the commercial the deliveryman drops off two pizzas to a home. Once he is gone, one man says to the other something to the effect of "wow he gave us more pizza than we paid for". The ad is promoting Pizza Hut's low costing pizza; two pizzas for the price of one (at a competing pizza place). That's all. A plain and simple commercial to get their point across that they saved money by ordering Pizza Hut.
In this article from Scoreboard however, that is not all. The author was perturbed with the ethical issue around benefiting from someone else's "mistake". I guess an example would be if Starbucks charged you for a small coffee when you really got a large. By benefiting from this, and not showing Starbucks their mistake, you are performing an ethical wrongdoing.
Under no circumstances, says the author from Scoreboard, should anyone walk away from this situation without paying the proper amount of money for what they bought. And likewise, Pizza Hut should not advertise how "cool" it is to get free things of which you did not pay for.
Apparently the author's son (who was 12 at the time), knew the commercial by heart. This was very bothersome to the author of the article because it represents how impressionable our society is, and commercials such as this one, could have a negative impact on the youth of today.
The author ends the article with this:
"The issue isn't what our culture is today, but what we want it to be tomorrow. Pizza Hut's sordid little commercial may not play a big part in pushing us one way or the other, but it contributes to the million's of little incidents and messages absorbed by our youth that are relentlessly warping their sense of right and wrong."
I applaud the author for writing about an ethical situation of which many wouldn't think about. Ethics and pizza. Who would have thought? However, I think the author should be aware that there are worse advertisements out there on TV, in print and on the radio. Sadly there is no way around this. Whether the author likes it or not, this is the culture we live in.
I've always said I feel sorry for my unborn children, because when they enter this world I am going to be such a stickler on what they watch on TV and listen to on the radio. Smut is everywhere. Bad morals are everywhere. I think the only way to "beat the system" is by educating the youth as much as you can. Talk to your children, have discussions on what you think is "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong". Than at least you can say you made an effort to help tomorrow's culture.
What do you think? E-mail any questions or comments to sally.k.dwyer@gmail.com. Ciao!
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