Ethicic Marketing: An Ethical Marketing Perspective

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.

Ethical marketing is less of a marketing strategy and more of a way of life that enlightens all marketing efforts. It seeks to promote honesty, fairness, and responsibility in all advertising. Some businesses pursue ethical marketing because they feel that is what customers expect from them. Some consumers buy products and services because they feel that the products, services, or companies are ethical. In response to this consumer demand, organizations have increased their focus on ethical marketing. Marketing employees must be aware of the principles of self-interest and personal virtues. As they make decisions they must

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

This will be an over view of ethics as it relates to business in our society. Concepts from Philosophy will seek to describe the correlation between actions that are classified as morally right or ethical in our dealings with each other as human beings. Clear and concise examples will be given as well as ways in which to improve upon business ethics.

One might ask, what makes an action ethical? Why some people think that product placement in movies is a considerably ethical phenomena, while others find it unethical and unacceptable. According to Tsalikis & Fritzsche, (1989, p, 696), ethics is an inquiry into the nature and grounds of morality where morality means moral judgments, standards, and rules of conduct (Tsalikis, Fritzsche, 1989, p, 696). In other words, ethics, which is a discipline that deals with what true and false is, is defined as a system of determined theory or moral values (Shea, 1988). Likewise an ethical evaluation is based on moral philosophy (Reidenbach & Robin, 1990). Therefore, an ethical decision depends on individual moral values, and the judgment of business activity is influenced by his/her moral philosophy (Wang, 2012).

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):

One knows they are making lawful and ethical decisions by their own code of conduct. Morals will always play a big role in decision making. People are get tempted by doing things that are not ethical because it is sometimes easy to do. An important controllable factor that could influence the moral judgment of salespeople is their organization’s ethical climate ( Ingram, Laforge, &Schwepker, 2007). The organizational ethical climate is share perceptions regarding policies and

Considering all the business disciplines available, marketing is usually considered to be probably the least self-critical. Regardless of the every now and then extremely bona fide interest in customer service, Provision of goods and services at costs that are affordable to the populace and implementation of efficient endorsements to push them to purchase merchandise that better fit their needs, wants and requirements, Marketing has not been able since time and memorial to evade the charge that it is morally, socially and ethically fruitless in some aspects. Marketers usually voice their aims and objectives regarding customer satisfaction, their corporate and ethical social responsibility programs, about building intimate

This essay is about discussing the ethicality of a company’s marketing activity. First of all, it needs to be defined what ethical activity is. Ethical marketing can bring advantages and disadvantages to the company. It can help to improve the brand image of the company and develop a trust with the customers. On the other hand, it cannot ensure that can increase the company’s sales or have a possibility to increase the advertising cost. In the following discussion, an international cosmetic firm, The Body Shop, is chosen to be the target.

Ethical Behavior- Companies must adopt and disseminate a written code of ethics, build a company tradition of ethical behavior and hold their people fully responsible for observing ethical and legal guidelines. Social Responsibility Behavior- Individuals marketers must exercise their social conscience in specific dealing with customers and stakeholders. In other words establishing a Corporate Social Responsibility report which reflects the company 's commitment for achieving its growth.(p.631).

Marketing, which goes beyond merely providing information about (and accessing) the product, may seek to deal with our values and behavior. This is acceptable to a certain extent, but where is the moral line that can be put? Marketing ethics are strongly intertwined with media ethics, because marketing is heavily used by the media. However, the ethics of the media is a much larger subject and extends beyond business ethics.

Marketing approach must incorporate the considered ethic for any affiliation that hence will exhibit a positive response from the general group. The reason is prevalently associated with the likelihood of marketing trade, where want level, tried and true relationship, and customer relationship organization is basic for the nearness of the business (Newton, Newton, Turk, and Ewing, 2013, pp.1421). This can be all the more suitably clarified with an illustration, where for each buy, the client looks for worth for the cash return, guarantee, and clear data from the offering party. Therefore, moral routine of promoting is itself a key part of the hierarchical picture too a key offering point.

In 1935, the National Association of Marketing Teacher adopted the first definition of marketing, which was ' the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers. ' Since 1948, the American Marketing Association has become responsible for the definition of marketing, and it adopted the definition in the same year . The definition of marketing has changed many times since 1948. In 2012, the AMA has provided the newest definition, which is the "activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large." Practical and ethical marketing are "the basic principals and values that govern the business practices of those engaged in promoting products or services to consumers. In another word, ethics is to act fairly, truthfully, and what it is culturally acceptable. Practical and ethical consideration of marketing to children has changed throughout the years. It has changed because of the growth of marketing competition.

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: