Dr. Juan Mundel Speaks About Rebuilding Trust in Advertising at IAE Global Ethics Day

Logan Chrisinske • October 29, 2025

At the Global Ethics Day session, Dr. Juan Mundel, associate professor at Michigan State University and editor of the Journal of Advertising Education, explored the evolving need for ethics in advertising and presented new research on the consumer impact of brands retreating from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.


Mundel explained that advertising ethics “evolved as advertising practice and institutions matured in society,” noting that early ethical concerns emerged “with the introduction of psychological research into the practice of advertising.” Once advertisers realized they could “take advantage of people’s anxieties, insecurities and fears,” he said, “ethical overreach began.”


He cited the Listerine case as a landmark example of accountability and drew parallels to the digital age, warning that “we all became subjects of an ongoing media experiment” with the rise of social media and algorithmic advertising. Ethical challenges, he said, have deepened with artificial intelligence, which raises issues of “opacity,” “proxy bias” and “feedback loops” that “elevate sensationalism, fear or insecurity.”


In sharing his research, Mundel said brands that withdraw from promised commitments efforts face consumer backlash. “We’re seeing a 20% decline in purchase intent from consumers who feel that their ethics have been actually hurt,” he said, describing such pullbacks as a “breach of ethicality.”


Mundel emphasized the importance of collaboration between academia and industry to promote ethical standards. “This is another great opportunity to encourage us to have more dialogue between academia and the industry,” he said. He concluded that the future of advertising “will depend not only on innovation but on trust,” adding, “Ethics should not be understood as a constraint on innovation but rather as a catalyst for it.”

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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.

Experts Debate “Where to Draw the Line” in Advertising Ethics, AI and Authenticity

By Logan Chrisinske • October 31, 2025
At the Global Ethics Day conference, industry leaders and academics explored how artificial intelligence, advertising ethics and authenticity intersect — and where companies should draw the line between innovation and manipulation. Esther Uhalte Cisneros of Google moderated the discussion, joined by Jackie Hernández, CEO of New Majority Ready, and Juan Mundel, associate professor at Michigan State University. Mundel shared new research showing that brands pulling back from diversity, equity and inclusion efforts risk losing consumer trust. “We found that consumers actually feel a breach of ethicality, and that breach hurts purchase intentions — we’re seeing a 20% decline,” he said. “It’s a reminder that academia and industry need to talk more about the data behind these decisions.” Hernández emphasized that ethics in advertising must evolve alongside technology. “Where you’re materially misleading a consumer is where I would see the thinking and the feeling that need to guide brand decisions,” she said.

Fireside Trust Performance and Ethics in Action

By Logan Chrisinske • October 30, 2025
At the Global Ethics Day session hosted by the Institute for Advertising Ethics, Ty Heath, director and co-founder of the B2B Institute at LinkedIn, and Sydney Boone, senior vice president at the Association of National Advertisers, explored how ethics serve as a foundation for trust and long-term business success in both consumer and B2B marketing. The discussion, was moderated by ID Comms CEO Tom Denford, underscored that ethical practices aren’t just moral ideals—they’re strategic investments in trust that define the future of marketing. Heath compared ethics to architectural integrity, calling them “the foundational investment in the integrity of yourself and the institution you’re building.” She emphasized that companies with strong ethical principles build faster, smoother, and more sustainable relationships with clients. “The brand that’s remembered is the brand that’s bought,” she said, underscoring that reputation and trust directly influence business decisions.