Ethical Issues in Marketing

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.

Our mission is to bring comfort and confidence to our customers using only the highest standards of ingredients to visibly protect and calm sensitive skin.

Ethics are integral in the 21st century due to the evolution of business, technology, and government oversight. There is a legal responsibility to do what is right by the customer – if you produce a product knowing that there is a high risk of harm to the consumer, you will be eventually be found out, prosecuted, and held liable.

This case study analyzes the experiences of Courtland Kelley at General Motors (GM). Courtland Kelley a third generation GM worker put his job on the line by pushing the GM managers and executives to fully respond to the safety issues found while working as a safety inspector at the company. Kelley along with his supervisor Bill McAleer first discovered the issues while auditing GM cars at rail yards across the country, a spot check of vehicles before the cars were cleared to be delivered to the dealers. McAleer was taken off the audit as a result, who subsequently sued the company seeking whistle-blower protection. The case was eventually dismissed by a judge in favor of GM. The judgement only increased Kelley’s

that you should avoid using on your body when buying beauty products. Some of these consists

The primary purpose of ethics and social responsibility is imperative to the way we do business and live amongst society. Ethics most commonly know as the rights and wrongs are principles and standards that establish what is know as acceptable conduct within an organization. Organizations have moral and legal duties to implement ethics when developing a strategic plan while considering stakeholders and consumers, they do not want to be lied to or cheated into buying a false product. Unethical companies will use aggressive sales tactics and mischievous ways, of doing business to sell, promote and profit from vulnerable consumers. Unethical organizations believe in these tactics

A few promising solutions exist for mitigating the effects of coffee rust. A few of them include government support, management options, improved technology and information sharing systems, and changing social perceptions of coffee.

• If I were offered a business deal that violated common business ethics I would first assess the situation and look at the reasons that the offer is unethical. Once I analyzed the situation I would address

Coffea commonly known as a coffee plant is the member of the Rubiaceae family (USDA 2015). While there are various species of the coffee plant, Coffee Arabica and Coffee Canephora are mostly grown. However, between them Coffee Arabica is considered to have greater quality and flavor. With the increase in demand of coffee within coffee drinkers globally, coffee has successfully ensured its place to become the world’s second largest commodity. Brazil is known as the top manufacturer of coffee followed by countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Colombia, and Ethiopia (USDA 2014). The rising demand for coffee has augmented the dependence of the coffee industry on countries that grows coffee. Using pesticides on coffee fields seemed to be an ultimate solution for farmers who were hoping for maximum productivity of coffee. Pesticides are used in agriculture in order to protect plants from fungal diseases, pests, insects that affect the growth of food crops. On the short run, using pesticides has an advantage as it increases the production and the quality of coffee. However, pesticide practices have negative issues on the environment, the quality and the amount of coffee manufactured, and the health of the coffee drinkers and the farmers in the long run.

2. Being in accordance with the rules or standards for right conduct or practice, especially the standards of a profession (Dictionary.com, n.d.). Ethical includes: Morals, values, tolerance, and discipline with all these terms sometimes used interchangeably with ethics (A. Puente, personal communication, November 17, 2015). In a Senior Non-Commissioned Officer (SNCO) academy course, Ethics is described as the study of what we understand to be good and right behavior and the study of how we judge those behaviors based on a set of standards of conduct that guide decisions and actions (Ethical Leadership, 2012).

Lastly, there are many other methods to find the way products will react with humans.We have developed in-vitro testing, artificial skin, and computer simulations to help us see the effects that products will have on specific human parts. In-vitro tests are human cell tissue based; they are very accurate. Artificial skin, such as EpiDerm and SkinEthic, can measure irritability of the skin, along with a product’s ability to damage the skin. These and similar computer simulated technologies are accurate “between 90 and 95 percent”, much higher than animal tests. Therefore, tests like these are much safer, and have more of a guarantee to

To fully understand the nature of the question posed one must know the meaning of ethics. Webster’s dictionary defines ethics as the philosophical study of the moral value of human conduct and of the rules and principles that ought to govern it; moral philosophy, the moral fitness of a decision, course of action, etc. Basically, I believe ethics is how one makes a decision according to the social norm that surrounds him. The social norm includes not only the culture but the laws and standard procedures of the environment. These laws and norms must be fully understood before one can understand the ethical significance of one’s decision.

Ethical problems in marketing starts with conflicts and disagreements. Each party in the marketing transaction brings expectations of how the business relationship will exist and how the transaction should be conducted. Some ethical problems in marketing research aren’t always the invasion of privacy and stereotyping. Selective marketing is used to discourage the demand from undesirable markets or just by disenfranchising them altogether. Examples of unethical market is the exclusion markets such as gay, ethnic minorities, and plus-size markets.

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: