“Bubbly Burst, the healthy fun chew.” This was the popular promotion for the leading chewing gum on the market. The parent company for the item, Confectionary Plus, had incorporated a variety of promotional tools to build brand awareness over the years. Besides its range of exotic flavors, the company boasted the reduced sugar content of its products. The company also often included in its ads that “sharp” persons consumed the gum when they needed a healthy boost. The ads were also tailored to appeal to kids with similar messages and was well distributed in schools and vending machines. After three years of such promotion, the product was now a regular staple in the lunch bag of kids as well as in the pockets of most adults. The success was largely due to the leadership of Peter Hinds, CEO of Confectionary Plus. Hinds was the brainchild behind the marketing and advertising thrusts. Company shareholders were well pleased with his overall results. Behind the scenes though there was a lot going on in the company. While the product did indeed have a reduced sugar content, the artificial sweetener used in the gum had been found to have potentially carcinogenic properties. While there was no conclusive proof of the danger of the product, the company had not approved full evaluation of the ingredient. Besides the potential consumer impact of the sweetener, there were also concerns by Chief Food Technologist, Dr. Marie Mohit that the addition of the ingredient in the production process resulted in a chemical reaction which often affected the respiratory system of a number of workers.
These issues did reach the ears of Hinds who was quite worker oriented. He engaged Dr. Mohit to undertake research on the issue. Generally, workers were not aware of the potential harm. They simply assumed that the respiratory issues were largely due to the general prevalence of “savanna dust” in the environment. Mohit was reluctant to directly research the issue since she had recently discovered that she was pregnant and felt that the material could negatively affect her unborn fetus. She therefore preferred to contract an external party to undertake the research. However, Hinds was adamant that involving an external party would potentially make the issue public and create challenges for the company. For now, he proposed that the workers could be provided with some surgical masks but not be advised of the danger.
The decision of the CEO on the testing issue did not sit well with Mohit. She outright felt that she should not put herself in potential harm. For some time she considered her options and eventually determined that her best option would be to go above the CEO to the company Chairman, Mr. Dan Blake. Blake was often a visitor to various departments but never directly engaged staff on work activity. Nonetheless, he was seen as friendly and would pay compliments to staff as he passed by. Mohit decided that she would engage Blake one afternoon in the car park.
In raising the issue with Blake, she provided documentation on the situation and was confident of getting a positive result. Mohit was pleased when Blake indicated that he would seriously consider the comments and suggestions. However, when he indicated that her proposal may be better considered over an evening of dinner and drinks, she became appalled. Mohit indicated that she would be unable to acquiesce, to which Blake calmly advised that she may have to therefore be prepared to do her job. Mohit made another attempt the next week and received a similar reaction. This time, Blake reminded Mohit that she should consider that her contract was up for renewal later in the year and her lack of ‘social skills’ may be a determinant in the renewal. Mohit felt that she had exhausted her options and the company seemed to have no other mechanism to address the two challenges that were now before her.
As Mohit sat at her desk one evening, she received an email from a reporter at the Daily Protector, a major national newspaper. The reporter indicated that there was an interest in speaking to her on some product issues. On reading the email, she began to wonder whether this email was another option for her to have the issues addressed.
QUESTIONS
1.a) Based on the case, are there any potentially ‘harmful’ effects of the advertising done by ‘Bubbly’?

b) Discuss the subject of the harmful nature of advertising and include other examples from the media to support your response.