Considering the immense social impact that information, communication and entertainment conglomerates have and the consequent power of publicity executives when it comes to conferring meaning to the lives of millions of people, the objective of this study is to throw light on the ethical stance of professionals when faced with the pressures from the environment. The theoretical point of reference adopted is the theory of social representations. The investigation used a qualitative methodology, which is suitable for establishing a theoretical basis that consists in employing in-depth interviews, as a technique for data collection and discourse analysis for interpreting the results. The social group under analysis comprises a sample of 30 professionals from 27 advertising agencies in São Paulo that were selected for their convenience. Among the advertising executives interviewed, it was apparent that there was an understanding of the meaning, scope, characteristics and importance of adopting an ethical stance. In practice however, they express a difficulty in maintaining ethical behavior given the pressures of the environment.
Marketing; macro-marketing; ethics; publicity; theory of social representations
