Consumer behaviour in marketing ethics

Marketing Ethics: The Marketers standards of conduct and moral values. The 5 areas of ethical concerns for Marketers are: Marketing Research – ex: Gathering marketing information in exchange for money or free offers. Product Strategy – ex: Product quality, planned obsolescence, packaging. Distribution – ex: Determining the appropriate degree of control over a channel. Promotion – ex: Gifts and Bribes Pricing – Most unethical pricing behaviours are also illegal. Social Responsibility: involves marketing philosophies, policies, procedures, and actions whose primary objective is the enhancement of society. The 4 levels of Social Responsibility are: Economic – Be Profitable; the foundation upon which all others rest Legal – Obey The Law; Play by the rules of the game Ethical – Be Ethical; Obligation to do what is right, just, and fair. Philanthropic – Be a Good Corporate Citizen; Contribute resources to the community, improve quality of life.

Many name brand companies have fallen under certain accusations of taking part in manufacturing their own products in sweatshops. These sweatshops are where workers of the company are employed in horrible and unsafe working conditions as well as working long hours at low wages. Unfortunately, one of the most popular companies in America is now being kept under surveillance for their unfair labor practices. This company that is well known has now damaged its reputation, specifically through their company’s image and their sales. The famous Nike brand has now fallen through the cracks.

It is a wildly know fact that Nike own many factories across the world although, mainly in third world countries such as Indonesia. Ironically the example of Nike acting unethically is located in a factory named Pou Chen in Indonesia; in 2011 workers reported acts of both mental and physical abuse in the factory (Stewart, N 21st April 2013). Examples of physical abuse included acts such as workers being slapped and kicked. It is needless to say that physical nor mental abuse in the workplace should never be permitted no matter the county or the situation. However: after all this has been made aware to world Nike treat their employees in this fashion and it has not been the first time either it still astounds me that Nike are still the world’s biggest sporting retailer they crush their nearest competitor Adidas in terms of brand value by having a total brand value of; seventeen billion which makes Adidas brand value of only seven and a half billion (World Finance N.D.) look like a pathetic attempt at trying to compete with Nike. With Nike expanding their business by investing a large amount of both time and money into fashion, with their most noticeable contribution being ever growing trainer collection. So with Nike being without a shadow of a doubt being the biggest sports retailer in the world and being

Nike, one of many shoe companies produce their shoes in sweatshops or factories located in other foreign countries. The globalization of these nike shoes has dehumanized the workers in which they struggle with a destitute society. We as human have to preserve quality of life over anything and it is important to let people know the benefit does not outweigh the costs. Thousands of Nike workers, speak on issues regarding their wages and working conditions. Nike has brought these jobs to Southeast Asia but these workers are being physically abused and untreated.

With Nike rapidly growing, in the 1990s reports began to surface of Nike sweatshops. In 1996; in a United States (U.S.) magazine, an image appeared of a young Pakistani boy sewing together a Nike football that shunned Nike (Wazir). Likewise, the next year another report surfaced that reported that workers in Nike factories in Vietnam were exposed to fumes 177 times over the legal limit allowed in Vietnam (Wazir). Feeling the pressure to act due to low demands (Nisen), Nike’s co-founder and chairman Phil Knight pledged to overhaul these conditions; nevertheless, three years later Nike came under scrutiny again for their abuse and exploitation of employees (Wazir). Even with the unrelenting criticism towards Nike (Nisen), the impact of these reports upon Nike’s success has been little, as Nike has continued their dominance over its competition (Lutz).

Singhapakdi, A., S. J. Vitell, and K. L. Kraft. (1996). Moral intensity and ethical decision-making of marketing professionals. Journal of Business Research 36 (3):

The results of the report were widely perceived to be unduly favorable to Nike. It appeared that Nike had arranged a cover up of their subcontractors’ abuses, which resulted in a backlash of yet more concerns about Nike’s labor practices. Students protested, encouraging colleges to cancel apparel contracts with Nike. This was a major concern for Nike given the importance of colleges to the apparel market, especially to the sports apparel sector. More recently, Adidas has faced similar protest because of their child labor

McDonald’s is a restaurant well known by children all over the world. In the documentary “Super Size Me” starring Morgan Spurlock, Spurlock surveyed children under the age of 8; he showed them a gallery of photos of different people such as George Washington, Jesus Christ, and Ronald McDonald. None of the kids knew who was George Washington or Jesus Christ, but when Spurlock showed them a picture of Ronald McDonald, all the children got excited, said Ronald McDonald’s name, and gave a description of him. This not only gives more evidence as to why McDonald’s is an incredible icon to children but it gives an attraction to them and that attraction convinces children to eat off the wide variety of food options on the McDonald’s menu. Children not only ask for McDonald’s but it soon becomes a habit and “before most children can speak they can recognize McDonald’s” according to Vivavegie.org. Most people can say that McDonald’s reputation is bad because of the fact that the franchise business contributes to the global epidemic, obesity.

Nike, a well renowned and one of the largest shoe brands, has contracts with manufacturing companies whom use foreign workers located in such countries as China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mexico. As the Nike factory workers strike against them, attention from the media and human rights groups get drawn. Nike was motivated

McDonald’s has been one of the main targets of the authorities in the issue of child obesity. Because of their children-focused advertisements and less healthy food products, they have been on the “hot seat” for several years. One of the biggest attacks they have received was from the documentary “Supersize Me”. To counter the bad publicity, McDonald’s used this opportunity to their advantage by launching a new campaign called “Changes” which featured healthier food choices from their menu including salads, free-range eggshells, fruits, and all-white-meat Chicken Selects. Unfortunately, this opportunity to showcase their ability to serve healthier menu choice wasn’t received very well. And to make matters worse, the fast-food chain continued to be on the defensive side but it did not bring them too much good. Their defensive article towards the documentary has retaliated when the film distributor issued and used the identical-looking ads in newspapers to promote the film instead.

In his 1998 speech, he takes a strong stance against their previous practices by stating: ''The Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime and arbitrary abuse, I truly believe that the American consumer does not want to buy products made in abusive conditions.'' (Cushman, John H). This appeal to emotion highlights the utterly appalling conditions of the overseas factories, and then contrasts it with the strong morals and character that the American people possess. This is effective in convincing the listener that Nike has taken full responsibility for their actions and they are—completely and utterly—dedicated to making a change. Their target audience is primarily made up of activists and individuals troubled by the issue of sweatshops; so the encouragement of their concern and the implication that Nike will strive to become a company deserving of their business strikes a major chord. Even Ballinger, the reporter who had originally documented the abuses occurring in Indonesia, praised the speech as “a very significant statement… I really, really believe that they are going to get after that problem.” (Cushman, John

Nike publicizes itself as one of the leading industries in corporate responsibility. However, they do not comply with several human rights obligations overseas in countries like Thailand, Pakistan, China, Vietnam and Indonesia. In these countries, production facilities called sweatshops have been running for almost 35 years employing workers as young as 13 years of age. The conditions of these factories are adverse to say the least and deprive workers of the moral human rights they should be entitled to. Sweatshops are unethical, immoral and demonstrate Nike’s ignorance towards their social responsibilities abroad. Within these facilities, workers endure stressfully long days under undesirable conditions, often

McDonalds is one of the largest food chains globally and in the U.S. It has one of the most recognized symbols with the golden arches. There are more than 34,000 local McDonalds around the world and they serve approximately 69 million people in 118 countries every single day. They also spend about two billion dollars on advertisements each year. The ethical issue that I want to address in this essay is whether or not McDonalds is ethical for advertising and selling obese and unhealthy foods to its customers. I believe it is important to explore this organization because McDonalds is one of the largest and most well-known food chains around the world. It is important to know that an organization as successful and large as them is also

Businesses have been relatively passive in investigate their in marketing ethics and are still operating according to traditional business models and process that do not reflect consumer interests and ethical implications of their activity often continue afterthought and are yet to be thoroughly incorporated into management decision-making. The contingency framework can accelerate this pre-emptive approach to ethical decision-making. To embed ethics into firms planning and strategy formulation process , marketers should learn from consumers ethical evaluation of their marketing techniques (Smith and Cooper-Martin 1997). An “ethical execution of the marketing program. In addition to financial , market, and competitive objectives, marketers should include consumer concerns and ethical integrity as important criteria for management decision making . Furthermore, ethics must be matched throughout the marketing planning process from product development, market selection , advertising and promotion execution.

Process-orientated framework, analyzing ethical problems in terms of the categories used by marketing specialists; Research, price, promotion, placement Specific issues in marketing ethics: