Legal and Ethical Considerations in Marketing, Product Safety, and Intellectual Property

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.

(Twitchell, p. 178) As if this tidbit of information was not enough to raise awareness of the bad side effects that come along with social media and advertising, a study was conducted recently to determine just how important advertisers found ethics to be; the results were shocking. It turns out that among twenty-nine different advertising agencies, two general groups were able to be formed: “those who feel ethics is largely irrelevant to advertising, and those who ‘typically recognized moral issues and talked about them inside the agency with their coworkers and outside the agency with their clients and potential clients.’” (Drumright and Murphy, 2009) Unfortunately, the majority of the agencies who were interviewed fell into the category of believing that ethics is largely irrelevant to advertising. Since ethics turn out to be of so little concern in the advertising industry, and since advertisements clutter social media, it is fair to conclude that said industries are not in existence to look out for consumers, but rather to provide a platform for sales and increased revenue.

Due to these incidents and many severe cases of drug side effects that had happened in the past including deaths, the current way drugs are developed and approved are unethical. Therefore, reform in FDA’s management as well as the guidelines is necessary to strengthen safety standards and eliminate problems regarding drug development and regulation.

The Federal Food, Drug Administration is responsible for establishing the Code of Federal Regulations which outlines the rules and regulations governing pharmaceuticals. The rules are divided into sections and include guidance based on drug categories. Due to each person having varying reactions to pharmaceutical products not all side-effects are detected during clinical testing. The Federal Food, Drug Administration is responsible for sharing the information with consumers. However, it seems a bit unethical because the large pharmaceutical companies do not have to share all of side-effect information that may assist consumers in making its choice on whether to try a product or to not try a product. Through various survey’s it was discovered that consumers are under the opinion that pharmaceutical companies need to have improved internal controls to ensure their compliance with regulations. Due to physicians and pharmaceutical companies working together and are dependent on one another there needs to be controls in place that would have an unbiased view of the regulations. The government will need to continue introducing new regulations that will aide in monitoring the relationships.

DTC prescription drug ads raise people’s awareness of possible health issues and encourage them to seek medical advice they might not get otherwise. Knowledge is power, and DTC ads help people become educated about drugs, medical conditions, and

Compounded drugs are drugs that are mixed by a licensed pharmacist, in a licensed pharmacy (cite 4). Compounding

Consumer protection is arguably important and needed in today’s modern world. With technology advancing every day, social issues are becoming more and more relevant. When primitive forms of advertising were being developed at the turn of the century, many did not think in terms of social responsibilities and preventing deceptive business practices, but in today’s changing world, the concern of ethics in advertising is becoming increasingly imperative. Advertising ethics encompasses a variety of areas, including product safety, protecting vulnerable parts of the population, corporate social responsibility and exercising truth in advertising practices. In addition, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) were established to administer pursuing violations and implement consumer protection laws to ensure that businesses have a code of ethics to safeguard consumers. We have witnessed many scenarios when companies have chosen not to employ ethical advertising practices and the aftermath that surrounds that decision, whether it is questionable marketing to children or exaggerating the effects of a product. Advertising ethics, or the lack of it, arguably walks a thin line between being ethical and being questionable. Establishing a set of self-regulating moral principles has demonstrated the need for corporate social responsibility in advertising. Without ethical codes in place, many parts of the population are vulnerable. With the

Our pharmacy policy and advocacy journey continued on to Anaheim, California, where the APhA-ASP Midyear Regional Meeting was held. The purpose of this gathering is to provide an opportunity for APhA-ASP Chapters across our region to share with one another various proposals on how we can advance the profession of pharmacy. This year, our Chapter suggested the following resolution:

“The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products,

12. The FDA would not let unsafe replications of drugs onto the market, prescription or over the counter medications

Pharmacy compounding is a practice that blends both science and art. It involves personalizing medications for patients. A Compounding pharmacist will put several ingredients in the medication. The patient will have a customized medication that meets his or her needs.

Companies involved in targeted advertising also have to deal with ethical issues. According to a study conducted by JL Davis on decision making in advertising, most of advertising experts were influenced only by legal actions, while ethics contributed as the minor factor. Based on the study of Wallace Snyder, advertising ethics, especially targeted advertising, is often given little attention until the company is compelled to make a response when challenged by the law (Snyder 2008). Some consumers haven’t been aware of that their privacy are stolen. Even if consumers were aware of online

Serving the public is the best thing in the world . For the sake of serving people Advertising, public relations, marketing communications, news, and editorial all share a common objective of truth and high ethical standards. Research suggest that consumers do believe in honest and ethical advertising. Now the industry has started growing and they have committed to highest standards of truth and accuracy. Professionals have to build and maintain consumer trust so that they can

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: