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Marketing ethics is the area of applied ethics which deals with the moral principles behind the operation and regulation of marketing. Some areas of marketing ethics (ethics of advertising and promotion) overlap with media ethics.
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Possible frameworks:
None of these frameworks allow, by themselves, a convenient and complete categorisation of the great variety of issues in marketing ethics.
Contrary to popular impressions, not all marketing is adversarial, and not all marketing is stacked in favour of the marketer. In marketing, the relationship between producer/consumer or buyer/seller can be adversarial or cooperative. For an example of cooperative marketing, see relationship marketing. If the marketing situation is adversarial, another dimension of difference emerges, describing the power balance between producer/consumer or buyer/seller. Power may be concentrated with the producer (caveat emptor), but factors such as over-supply or legislation can shift the power towards the consumer (caveat vendor). Identifying where the power in the relationship lies and whether the power balance is relevant at all are important to understanding the background to an ethical dilemma in marketing ethics.Lizabeth England,Marketing With A Conscience: Sales and Ethics, US Dept. of State.
A popularist anti-marketing stance commonly discussed on the blogosphereA.J.Kandy, Is marketing evil?,King Marketing, 2004; William DeJong, Marketing Gets Unfairly Branded as Evil, Youth Today; Kathy Sierra, You ARE a marketer. Deal with it, 2005. and popular literatureThe vastness of the literature on this topic is perhaps best conveyed by D. Slaters 1999 bibliography of consumer culture with over 1500 items. W.R. Childs (Ohio State University) has posted a shorter bibliography of consumer culture. is that any kind of marketing is inherently evil. The position is based on the argument that marketing necessarily commits at least one of three wrongs:
Ethical danger points in market research include:
Stereotyping occurs because any analysis of real populations needs to make approximations and place individuals into groups. However if conducted irresponsibly, stereotyping can lead to a variety of ethical undesirable results. In the AMA Statement of Ethics, stereotyping is countered by the obligation to show respect ("acknowledge the basic human dignity of all stakeholders").American Marketing Association Statement of Ethics
Ethical danger points include:
Examples of unethical market exclusionThe term "selective marketing" is preferred. The term market exclusion is normally used in the different context of a cartel of suppliers excluding newcomers from distribution chains. or selective marketing are past industry attitudes to the gay, ethnic minority and obese ("plus-size") markets. Contrary to the popular myth that ethics and profits do not mix, the tapping of these markets has proved highly profitable. For example, 20% of US clothing sales are now plus-size.CBS News, Plus-Size People, Plus-Size Stuff, Nov 10, 2003 Another example is the selective marketing of health care, so that unprofitable sectors (i.e. the elderly) will not attempt to take benefits to which they are entitled.Mark H. Waymack, The ethics of selectively marketing the Health Maintenance Organization, Journal of Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, Issue Volume 11, Number 4 / December, 1990, Pages 301-309 A further example of market exclusion is the pharmaceutical industry\'s exclusion of developing countries from AIDS drugs.Ruairí Brugha, Antiretroviral treatment in developing countries, BMJ 2003;326:1382-1384
Examples of marketing which unethically targets the elderly include: living trusts, time share fraud, mass marketing fraudSenior Journal, Hundreds Arrested in Mass-Marketing Fraud Targeting Senior Citizens, May 24, 2006 and others.Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, Frauds That Target The Elderly, July 11, 2006 (Originally from: FDIC Consumer News) The elderly hold a disproportionate amount of the world\'s wealth and are therefore the target of financial exploitation.US Federal Trade Commission, Consumer fraud against the elderly.
In the case of children, the main products are unhealthy food, fashionware and entertainment goods. Children are a lucrative market: "...children 12 and under spend more than $11 billion of their own money and influence family spending decisions worth another $165 billion"Tom McGee and Kevin Heubusch, `Getting Inside Kids\' Heads\', American Demographics, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1997), quoted in Sharon Beder, Marketing to Children, University of Wollongong, 1998., but are not capable of resisting or understanding marketing tactics at younger ages ("children don\'t understand persuasive intent until they are eight or nine years old"ibid.). At older ages competitive feelings towards other children are stronger than financial sense. The practice of extending children\'s marketing from television to the schoolground is also controversial (see marketing in schools). The following is a select list of online articles:
Other vulnerable audiences include emerging markets in developing countries, where the public may not be sufficiently aware of skilled marketing ploys transferred from developed countries, and where, conversely, marketers may not be aware how excessively powerful their tactics may be. See Nestle infant milk formula scandal. Another vulnerable group are mentally unstable consumers.Deborah Josefson, Marketing of antipsychotic drugs attacked BMJ 1998;316:645 The definition of vulnerability is also problematic: for example, when should endebtedness be seen as a vulnerability and when should "cheap" loan providers be seen as loan sharks, unethically exploiting the economically disadvantaged?
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List of unethical pricing practices.
Ethical pitfalls in advertising and promotional content include:
Business ethics has been an increasing concern among larger companies, at least since the 1990\'s. Major corporations increasingly fear the damage to their image associated with press revelations of unethical practices. Marketers have been among the fastest to perceive the market\'s preference for ethical companies, often moving faster to take advantage of this shift in consumer taste. This results in the expropriation of ethics itself as a selling point or a component of a corporate image.
Jon Entine, A social and environmental audit of the body shop, July 1996 - July 2003. However the story of the Body Shop ended with increasing criticism of a gap between its morals and its practices.Nick Mathiason, Body Shop ethics bite back, The Observer, April 9, 2006.
"Liberation marketing takes the old mass culture critique — consumerism as conformity — fully into account, acknowledges it, addresses it, and solves it. Liberation marketing imagines consumers breaking free from the old enforcers of order, tearing loose from the shackles with which capitalism has bound us, escaping the routine of bureaucracy and hierarchy, getting in touch with our true selves, and finally, finding authenticity, that holiest of consumer grails." (Thomas Frank)Thomas Frank, Liberation Marketing and the Culture Trust, (date unknown).
The main theoretical issue here is the debate between free markets and regulated markets. In a truly free market, any participant can make or change the rules. However when new rules are invented which shift power too suddenly or too far, other participants may respond with accusations of unethical behaviour, rather than modifying their own behaviour to suit (which they might not be able to anyway). Most markets are not fully free: the real debate is as to the appropriate extent of regulation.
Case: California electricity crisis, which demonstrates how constant innovation of new marketing strategies by companies such as Enron outwitted the regulatory bodies and caused substantial harm to consumers and competitors.
A list of known unethical or controversial marketing strategies:
Controversial marketing strategies associated with the internet:
Marketing ethics overlaps with environmental ethics in respect of waste problems associated with the packaging of products.Definition of marketing ethics (in German), excerpted from: Bruhn, M., Homburg, C.: Gabler Marketing Lexikon, Wiesbaden 2001.
Some, such as members of the advocacy group No Free Lunch, have argued that marketing by pharmaceutical companies is negatively impacting physicians\' prescribing practices, influencing them to prescribe the marketed drugs rather than others which may be cheaper or better for the patient.Brendan I. Koerner. Dr. No Free Lunch. Mother Jones, March/April, 2003. Retrieved on 2007-10-06.
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Marketing ethics and marketing law are related subjects. Relevant areas of law include consumer law which protects consumers and antitrust law which protects competitors - in both cases, against unethical marketing practices. Regulation extends beyond the law to lobbies, watchdog bodies and self-regulatory industry bodies.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
