Whole Foods 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.

Whole Foods has the Philanthropic Responsibility on Carroll’s global social responsibility pyramid, mainly for their involvement in educating employees, and customers on the importance of lifestyle changes in eating more organic, healthy foods. Moreover, Whole Foods involvement in volunteer work through the communities they serve; however,

Whole Foods is a retailer that specializes in organic foods and it has done an excellent job of determining its target market and how to position itself. Instead of going head to head with large food retailers such as Wal-Mart, Whole Foods has found a niche market that works perfectly for itself. This niche market is one that prides itself on being health conscious and environmentally responsible and Whole Foods has done a great job of positioning itself in the same way through its environmentally safe actions and its use of the local community to stock its stores. However, as Whole Foods grows and expands, a person has to wonder if the company will be able to maintain this same position or will have to make

All in all, Whole Foods Market Inc. is the most influential organic food retailer in the word. It built its motifs centered around its social responsibilities. The company’s green mission, Whole Foundations, and Whole Trade Guarantee showcase its commitment and reslince in supporting and bettering the world’s community busing food as the

Whole Foods has many important values. For example, they believe that their customers are the most important stakeholders and the lifeblood of their business.[8] Whole Foods has five major stakeholders; John Mackey (CEO), James Sud, Glenda Chamberlain, Walter Robb, and John Elstrott.[9] Whole Foods selectively chose where to do business based on their average customer. Whole Foods knows that its products are for health and food enthusiasts.[10]

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

Whole Foods Market was founded by John Mackey as a healthy, socially responsible lifestyle that customers can identify with (Pearce & Robinson, 2013, p 29-1). The company differentiated itself from competitors by focusing on quality as excellence and innovation that allows them to charge premium price for premium products (Pearce & Robinson, 2013, p 29-1).

Additionally, it sought to offer the highest quality, least processed, most flavourful and naturally preserved food available. It has thus marketed them in appealing store environments that have made shopping at Whole Foods an interesting and enjoyable experience. The company uses strategies with respect to their growth, store location, product line, pricing, merchandising and even it’s social responsibility and community citizenship initiatives that have helped tremendously in its success.

Whole Food goes by a management philosophy called conscious capitalism meaning "the ethical treatment of customers, employees, and the environment is the main mission and basis for organizational culture (Cheretis& Mujtaba 2014,p.7)." This is a management philosophy that was created by the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey. The philosophy was made to empower people, which is the customer, employer and investors. The three aspects will improve socialism as a whole. It's a win-win for the entire system and he value that is shown to employees in this system ignites enthusiasm to work. It’s just a trickle-down effect for the customer to feel valued and profit begins for the shareholder. People is what makes a successful business and Mackey shows

Whole Food launched it’s Whole Trade Guarantee in April 2007, it was an initiative emphasizing the social responsibility and equitable compensation for producers from the developing world. Whole Foods justifies the its program as a commitment to benefiting to all stakeholders. The program reduced immediate profitability by paying foreign workers better wages, the investment improves relationships, improves the company’s reputation, and serves as a great example of the Whole Foods’ commitment to social responsibility.

Through innovative assistance for entrepreneurship — including direct micro-credit loans and tangible support for other community partnership projects — we seek to unleash the energy and creativity of every human being we work with in order to create wealth and prosperity in emerging economies” (Whole Foods, 2017). Whole Food’s whole planet foundations serve 69 countries across the world to reduce poverty including the United States. Whole Food’s currently support 1,919,000 micro-entrepreneurs in 69 different countries around the world. The Whole Planet Foundation was founded in 2005 it is a nonprofit foundation that provides funds to different cultures around the world to empower them to expand a

Whole Foods Market began in 1970 as a local supermarket. Over the past 31 years, Whole Foods Market has grown from a single store in Austin, Texas, to becoming one of the worldwide leaders in providing consumers with natural and organic foods. They have grown to over 300 stores in both North America and the United Kingdom. (Whole Foods Market, Inc., 2011) This report examines the chief elements of the strategy that Whole Foods Market has put into place. Also, it uses past financial data to provide an assessment of the condition of the company going forward. Those assessments include recommendations of future actions, along with concerns I have about the way the company is currently operating and some difficulties that may be on the way.

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:

In the modern world, two things are most sought after: goodness and prosperity. However, given the innate nature of mankind, and his compulsions towards greed and selfishness, complete morality is impossible. This idea has roots in the definitions and ideals found in utilitarianism, a term that will be defined later, and has led many to call business ethics an oxymoron. “In the US generally, the ethical road that is paved with good corporate intentions and constructive programs includes some bumps,” (McClenahen 60). Although bumps may exist, many companies are striving for excellence in this area as statistics show ethics are related to customer loyalty 's. These businesses have found that improvements can be found through understanding and action. Business leaders can increase morals by understand utilitarianism, leadership, correct forms of communication, and how these affect customers.