CFH: ethic investment: contradiction in terms or?

[elena]

In Sept.11 Independent's "Your Money" there is a longish article on "ethic
investment". There is no "ethic consumerism" culture in Bulgaria yet, so it
was quite difficult to discuss in class (British Studies). We ended up
discussing "ethic advertising" in the context of the GM brawl and the
Benetton peace-and-war campaign for Kosovo (the nice thing ab Benetton
campaign, too, was it provided a "legitimate excuse" for discussing Kosovo
at the uni without being accused of bringing in /unauthorised/ political
issues and upsetting pro-NATO students). Sadly, no theoretical stuff in the
libary (and not much on-line that i'd been able to trace). I'd rather drop
out the topic altogether, than bastardise it :-(((
So, the CFH's in a nutshell:
1) Any criticism of "ethic advertising/consumerism/investment" from a
marxist point of view? (i.e. theoretical back-up; the closer to the
for-dummies level, the better - mine are not students of economics). It
looks like a winning marketing strategy, a cheap way for the
consumer/investor to feel good and prosper, but how does one get this point
across convincingly? Or maybe I am paranoid in thinking it rings false,
altogether?
2) Acc to the article, "recent research by one company, Friends' Provident,
shows that, when asked, 94 per cent of people say they would like their
investments to benefit companies that help, rather than harm, the world". It
would be ideal to lay hands on the questions of this survey (or a similar
one); do they normally include overexploitation of women's and children's
labour, bad working conditions, etc in Third World countries as "harm" to
the world, or is it just more global concerns like pollution, drugs, animal
testing, etc (no, wojtek, i am not underestimating global concerns). I tried
to write and get The Independent's Free Guide to Ethical Investment (as
advertised in the paper) but they probably do not distribute it outside the
UK, particularly to countries with bad investment record.
3) Which UK companies rely most aggressively on ethic advertising? I only
came up with Body Shop advertisements last term...
4) - touchline Q - Any '90's British film on PR and advertising practices?
Any help is most valuable...