This is a good point and I agree, this is just marketing. But I do think there is a moral continuum in that. I want to say on one end lies purely factual dry information: "On offer today are bananas, they cost x currency units, which is cheaper than Store ABC ...". On the other end is something amoral--maybe a good word is "scam"? Selling hopes and dreams, as I called it, is not immoral per se, I also agree. Where the threshold into amorality lies? idk ... But to take the Gym example, I've seen ads which are pretty okay, and some that are scam-ish. If they sell you a realistic, attainable goal of "getting fit" or whatever, that's okay. If they show you a pro athlete (10y+ training, substances and genetic luck) and tell you that "everyone" can achieve this ("you only need to sign up! just a few months!"), that is amoral to me, but not a scam. I would categorize the example in this post somewhere in that moral category.
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This is a good point and I agree, this is just marketing. But I do think there is a moral continuum in that. I want to say on one end lies purely factual dry information: "On offer today are bananas, they cost x currency units, which is cheaper than Store ABC ...". On the other end is something amoral--maybe a good word is "scam"? Selling hopes and dreams, as I called it, is not immoral per se, I also agree. Where the threshold into amorality lies? idk ... But to take the Gym example, I've seen ads which are pretty okay, and some that are scam-ish. If they sell you a realistic, attainable goal of "getting fit" or whatever, that's okay. If they show you a pro athlete (10y+ training, substances and genetic luck) and tell you that "everyone" can achieve this ("you only need to sign up! just a few months!"), that is amoral to me, but not a scam. I would categorize the example in this post somewhere in that moral category.