Influence, Integrity, and the Future of Advertising: A Conversation with Cass Sunstein

Institute for Advertising Ethics • June 24, 2025

When Harvard Professor Cass Sunstein speaks, people listen. One of the world’s leading voices on behavioral science, law, and ethics, Sunstein joins IAE President Andrew Susman for a timely conversation on trust, manipulation, and the future of advertising.

In a insightful video interview, IAE President Andrew Susman speaks with Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, author of Nudge and Manipulation, about the ethical challenges facing modern advertising. Their conversation spans emotional appeals, AI, dark patterns, and the blurry line between persuasion and manipulation.


When Persuasion Becomes Manipulation

Sunstein began with a simple question: When does persuasion cross into manipulation? The key, he said, lies in how we think. Persuasion appeals to reason; manipulation exploits emotion and bypasses reflection.


“Appealing to someone’s joy isn’t necessarily manipulation,” Sunstein said, “but scaring someone into a decision, when reflection wouldn’t warrant fear? That’s where the line gets crossed.”


A Nudge ≠ A Shove

Sunstein clarified that not all nudges are created equal. A GPS suggesting a route or a label showing calorie content? Helpful nudges. A site quietly auto-enrolling users? That’s manipulation in disguise.


“Nudges are fine,” Sunstein emphasized, “as long as they’re transparent, truthful, and preserve freedom of choice.” If they start resembling sleight-of-hand magic tricks? Then, he warned, we’re entering the ethical shadows.


Dark Patterns, Easy In—Impossible Out

"Dark patterns," as Sunstein calls them, are designs that trap users into subscriptions or hide key terms. These are designs that make it incredibly easy to opt in and maddeningly difficult to opt out are not just a hassle but manipulation. These tricks erode trust and call for stronger ethical guidelines in digital design.


Can AI Be Ethical?

AI has the potential to help consumers make smarter choices if it’s designed ethically. Sunstein believes behavioral science can guide that process. “AI shouldn’t inherit our cognitive flaws. It should help us overcome them,” he said.


From Principles to Precision

The conversation closed with a bold vision: ethical codes that are dynamic, interactive, and AI-supported. Imagine an ethics agent embedded in ad systems, or a complaint database that flags manipulative patterns over time.


In a digital economy, trust isn’t just a virtue, but a business asset and competitive advantage. In a world where consumer trust is hard-won and easily lost, ethical advertising builds credibility, drives loyalty, and ultimately leads to better business.


“From manipulation to meaning, from principles to practice,” Susman concluded. “This is where advertising must go.”

Watch the full interview below.

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Bulletin #9: Momentum Grows: Leaders Unite to Build Trust in Advertising

By Logan Chrisinske • November 20, 2025
Building Trust at Every Touchpoint The Institute for Advertising Ethics is gaining momentum, propelled by the success of our October Global Ethics Day in New York. Across participants and panelists alike, IAE’s Ethics Day affirmed a growing consensus that trust is now becoming operational, measurable, teachable, and scalable throughout the advertising and media ecosystem. Global Ethics Day 2025: Building Trust at Every Touchpoint The Liberty Room at Frankfurt Kurnit was filled on October 15 as leaders from industry, government, civil society and academia united for IAE Ethics Day 2025. Delegates from the U.S. Government, ANA Ethics Center, Microsoft, Kenvue, Uber, LinkedIn, Google LLC, Yahoo Inc., Accenture, Dentsu, Paul Weiss, Mastercard, and many others came together around a single, urgent theme: advancing the creation of scalable ethics standards to restore trust across the $1.5 trillion advertising and media industry, especially amid the rise of AI. The work is well underway, led by leaders shaping an open, validated, multi-stakeholder standard, one that delivers transparency, interoperability, verifiability, and broad adoption. Highlights included: “The future of advertising depends not only on innovation but on trust. Ethics shouldn't be understood as a constraint on innovation, rather as a catalyst for it." -Dr. Juan Mundel, Editor, Journal of Advertising Education. Dr. Juan Mundel speaks about rebuilding trust in Advertisin g “We need to create a culture where people can ask questions and where we prioritize ethics.” -Dr. Anna McAlister, Director of Curriculum and Assessment, IAE Experts highlight the role of ethics education and self-regulation in the Advertising Industry “Trust is the new currency in our industry. Without it, even the most creative campaigns can’t sustain real impact.” -Ty Heath, Director and co-founder of the B2B Institute, LinkedIn Fireside Trust Performance and Ethics in Action “People tend to believe computers are smarter than we are, which makes us less likely to question their output.” -Dr. Dana LaFon, U.S. Government Panel Explores Global Ethical Frameworks Guiding AI and Advertising “AI knows, but AI doesn’t think and AI doesn’t feel. That’s a line that’s helpful for me.” -Esther Uhalte Cisneros, Head of eCommerce & Retail Sales, Germany, Google Experts Debate “Where to Draw the Line” in Advertising Ethics, AI and Authenticity “Legal is [...] the floor and ethics is the ceiling. Even if something is legally correct, it may not be ethically right to do.” -Peri Fluger, General Counsel, Ruder Finn Building a Culture of Compliance: From Policy to Practice

Building a Culture of Compliance: From Policy to Practice

By Logan Chrisinske • November 3, 2025
At the Global Ethics Day session hosted by the Institute for Advertising Ethics, legal and communications leaders from Uber, LinkedIn and Ruder Finn joined attorney Jeffrey Greenbaum of Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz to discuss how companies can translate ethical principles into practice. Greenbaum opened by noting that ethical advertising often goes beyond legal compliance. “Even if you communicate truthful information to consumers, but you communicate it in a way that’s misleading, that in and of itself can be false advertising,” he said. Jess Smith, associate general counsel at Uber, said ethics should be embedded in company culture, not just policy. “It’s not just who the brand is — it’s what actions they take out in the world,” she said.

Panel Explores Global Ethical Frameworks Guiding AI and Advertising

By Logan Chrisinske • October 31, 2025
At the Global Ethics Day session hosted by the Institute for Advertising Ethics, panelists explored how ethical frameworks—Western and non-Western alike—shape the future of artificial intelligence and advertising. John C. Havens, a leading AI ethics expert and author, opened the discussion by contrasting Western “dualism” with indigenous and collective ethical traditions. “In the West, binary code—1 and 0—is based on dualism,” he said. “But traditions like Ubuntu ethics remind us, ‘I am because we are.’ When you take the best of Western thinking and apply what it means to be in community, you get the best of both worlds.” Alayna Kennedy, a data scientist and AI governance leader at MasterCard, emphasized the importance of turning abstract ethics into practical systems. “The real challenge is how to make fairness real—how to take a word on a page and turn it into a change in your product that impacts a real person,” she said. She added that MasterCard takes a “risk-based” approach to AI governance, focusing on identifying and mitigating potential harms while enabling innovation.