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Ethical advertising (and web and social media production) is totally transparent. That’s it. That’s its regulative ethical goal. If the product and company are ethical, a good design highlights that. If they aren’t, a good design shows that as well. I’m not suggesting that a good design shines the harshest possible light on a client, but the Internet does, and a good design takes that into account in advance.

Now, you are probably thinking, if that’s a good design, who’s going to hire me? The obvious answer is: companies that behave ethically. Working for good companies is good for you, because (a) it brands you as trustworthy, (b) it makes your services scarce (and thus more desirable), and (c) you’ll sleep great at night. It is also good for your clients, not only because your brand is a seal of approval on their clean ethical track record, but because meaningful and keepable promises are the most effective form of branding and advertising.

Of course, sometimes we just simply aren’t approached by enough warm and fuzzy companies to keep the kids in sneakers. The good news is that in addition to working for ethically stand-up companies, you can also — by taking on another role inside your design engagement — work with ethically milquetoast companies, and help them become better!

Here’s what I have in mind: Imagine the traditionally understood role of the designer inside a corporate engagement as consisting in three major elements:

1. Make it beautiful and clever
2. Create elegant solutions to complex problems
3. Do the former two in service of increasing revenue

This is great, but our social media expertise can tell us that sometimes 1 + 2 does not equal 3. This fact is evidenced in contemporary terms by the alarming statistic that 50% of all social media campaigns fail, and by the long-standing advertising wisdom of "pay and pray." Our suggestion? The advertising recipe’s always been missing a critical component. Imagine a design engagement that focuses on these elements:

1. Make it beautiful and clever
2. Create elegant solutions to complex problems
3. Advocate for business ethics based on technology expertise
4. Do the former three in service of increasing revenue

By using a design engagement to engender positive ethical change in a company, you’re doing something that people can and will get behind. This means that you’re creating new content for a non-patronizing advertising opportunity around a meaningful promise your client can keep.

Via

A design engagement has always been a means to solve problems of perception. In the past, designers have been expected to solve these problems by creating new and compelling coats of paint to cover stagnant, bloated companies and products. Alternatively, designers could use their design engagements to solve these problems by creating campaigns that require their clients to deploy simple ethical initiatives in the service of more effective advertising and branding.