Is Marketing Really All That Ethical?

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.

Name: Loo Zheng Xian, George 13th September 2011 Marketing Ethics: A Response to Roger Crisp Introduction In his article “Persuasive Advertising, Autonomy, and the Creation of Desire”, Roger Crisp discusses his views on the issue of persuasive advertising. His overarching argument is that persuasive advertising ‘overrides the autonomy of consumers’ and he concludes that ‘all forms of a certain common type of advertising (i.e. persuasive advertising) are morally wrong’. In my response to this article, I will adopt an ethical viewpoint towards my analysis of various points raised by Crisp. Viewing Crisp’s argument from a Kantian perspective, the deprivation of autonomy stemming from persuasive advertising would be deemed as unethical. From a

Volkswagen is one of the largest automakers in the world and it has a global reputation as a high-quality German auto brand. Social responsibility is included in VW’s corporate culture and it seems that Volkswagen made some advances in Corporate Social Responsibility because the corporation was ranked 11th 2015 in the Global CSR Rep Track 100, which listed companies by reputation (Reputation Institute, 2015).However, the company has been threatened by an emission scandal which broke in September 2015, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disclosed that Volkswagen had installed defeat devices on diesel cars which were sold in the US. These devices equipped on VW cars cheated regulators in such a way that it could detect

Marketing is like a double-edged sword, if it is adopted properly, it will give profits to a company; however, if it is used inadequately, it will give harm. It is undeniable that today’s business operations have more intense competition level against each other due to the advancement of technology that allows people to receive more information. Marketing plays the key role in making products being recognized by consumers. To get people’s attention, some massages about the product need to be sent to the target market. With the high level of competition, the unethical marketing issues arise in order to make their own firms gain more

Three ethical issues relating to marketing and advertising are Truth in Adverting and Marketing, Advertising and Marketing Harmful Products and Advertising and Marketing Tactics. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has requirements for truth in advertising and the FTC

Today, marketing research managers must fully take into account the marketing research process and marketing ethics while conducting their research. According to Brown (2014), the marketing research process is the process of gathering and interpreting data for use in developing, implementing, and monitoring the firm’s marketing plans; whereas marketing ethics are the principles, values, and standards of conduct followed by marketers. To stress the importance of both the marketing research process and ethics, I will apply the principles of each one to a different scenario.

The mistrust between the Volkswagen Company and their customers developed after the scandal associated with the incorrect emission of data and cheating of the system unfolded.  The scandal occurred on the eighteenth of September 2015 when it was found that the company had made a car with a turbo that released emission directly into the real word atmosphere. The allegations were genuine and were proved by the Environment Protection Agency in the United States (EPA) (Hotten, 2016).The chief

It is not hard to see that the scandal would cause a horrid blow to VW’s image. Until the incident, VW had, like many other German companies, the reputation of “German engineering” (Robertson, 2013). However, instead of using that innovation to develop diesel-fueled cars compliant with U.S. standards, it decided to try to scam its way in the market. Not only did the company admit to having 11 million cars with software intended to cheat tests (Gates, Ewing, Russell & Watkins, 2017), it also plead guilty to “destroying evidence in an elaborate cover-up” (VW Admits Emissions Cheating and Cover-up, 2017); building further distrust among its consumers.

Ethics in a business is a very important issue, especially in marketing. Customers want to be informed of products and their qualities, but they also want the information to be truthful. The purpose of a marketing department is to communicate products to potential customers so that they will be more inclined to purchase the product. This is where ethics comes into play. If a company makes their product look more desirable than it is, it is very likely that the consumers will be disappointed in the product. This could result in pushing customers away and might boost sales initially but they will drop off quickly. “Not employing ethical marketing practices many lead to dissatisfied customers, bad publicity, a

The objective of this paper is to identify and analyse the policies specified by government and organisations for the protection of consumer interests and the role of ethics in consumer choice. It also analyses the role of ethics in consumer culture and give examples of how the service sector reacts to it.

Administered by the American Advertising Federation (AAF) in partnership with the Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) and the Missouri School of Journalism the Institute for Advertising Ethics, the IAE was built there are eight principles and practices which convey how all forms of communication should do what is right for consumers and which in turn is right for business.

Advertising is the indispensable way a brand promotes itself, but the imperative way to do this is in an ethical way. It is essential to reach out to the audience in a way, which doesn’t hurt their feelings or get to them in a negative way. When a commercial gets a negative review it eventually gets banned from being aired, as the viewers find it ‘offensive’ or have their very plausible reasons for it and moreover the main essence of the ad has vanished.

The birth of ‘Marketing’ happened centuries ago where vendors in ancient times tried to seduce the oncoming customer by chanting in loud noises and catering to the customer needs by negotiation of price or assumption of what they might need aside from what they were actually looking for. Over the years, this process has been refined, given a

After the announcement of the emissions scandal, Volkswagen is fumbling to figure out how to pick up the broken pieces of its brand image. Volkswagen had ruined the trust of all of its stakeholders. The announcement of the cheated emissions test has crushed Volkswagen’s stock price by almost 20%, which implies an almost $27 billion loss in market value. This scandal required the recall of 11 million cars with an expected cost of over $25 billion in penalty fees and the cost to fix recalled vehicles. This scandal of much higher than stated emissions directly contradicted with Volkswagen’s branding of a clean emission diesel vehicle. It could not have gotten much counter-intuitive. Volkswagen has spent 45% of its television advertising budget directly focusing on Volkswagen’s products’ low emissions. That marketing budget is now valueless. However, most importantly, Volkswagen upset its customer base. The owners of these recalled vehicles not only feel lied to and betrayed, they have to take time to bring their recalled car in to get fixed. But, one of the biggest complaints is the loss of resale value totalling nearly $5000. This may disrupt repeat customers and

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