Ethics according Murphy and Gene (2004) is defined as “The set of rules, principles and beliefs about right and wrong, good and bad, justice and injustice, duty and obligation which governs people’s behavior, or which they believe ought to govern their behavior. ” Thus Ethics in marketing will simply mean doing marketing in a right moral way.
That every business has a duty and moral responsibilities of telling the truth of their products when marketing . Companies are bound with social, moral and environmental responsibility to stick to values of being honesty and fair in their marketing.That when marketing products they should safeguard interest such of children by not using pornographic pictures especially on billboards. We are going to take a critical look at marketing ethics and what it entails, ethics in the modern business world and extend at which it should be taken.
We shall also examine some laws and regulation in marketing ethics and analyze the marketing ways employed by companies. Also we shall review advertisement and some type of advertisement that are controversial. Consumer protection and some regulation governing marketing ethics will also be reviewed.And then make a conclusion. The aim for any business is to make profit and to keep the business on the competitive edge it must do marketing. Therefore marketing a necessary tool that will be used always by companies to maintain or capture new customers.
But while marketing companies get involved in unethical practices. We can mention three broad practices they do. First they destroy personal autonomy where by they interfere with the buyers’ right of choice by making him/her not to make an informed choice of his/her own.Secondly, there is harm caused to other competitors especially in saturated markets where unethical practices will be used to upset a competitor. Thirdly companies will manipulate social and moral values of a society especially when advertising their products.
Also the environment can be harmed. This can be seen as where cigarettes are marketed as but the full dangers to the environment are not disclosed to the public. Let’s examine some specific issues that will arise in marketing ethics. These are market research which will include issues such as stereotyping and also invading privacy.Stereotype will occur when a company is carrying out a research programme and group a population in some groups for analysis, this when not done properly will give a stereotype results. The result may lead racial discrimination or gender stereotype.
For invading privacy is where by the marketing research team will ask some very personal questions of individuals from whom data is being collected. (Murphy and Gene, 2004) Another ethical issue comes from market audience. This will include marketing targeting a certain group, this can be children, pregnant mothers’ the elderly or even the obese.This goes hand in hand with doing choosy or selective marketing.
A good example for selective marketing is when the pharmaceutical companies leave out developing countries when marketing AIDS drugs. Many companies dealing in living trust and holidays will target the older people since a number of them normally have acquired a lot of wealth. Thus they will be exploited. For children junk foods and toys are marketed to them and their parents to make it real capturing to the kids and the unsuspecting parents. Thus, children who are normally 12 years and below, end up buying this products without proper information.
For example in America, children who are 12 and below spend $11 billions while they parents spend $165 billion on top of that. Marketing targeting children has gone to schools which seem unethical because children can not make informed decision. Other target groups that can be taken advantage of include the developing countries which may not be aware of the marketing tricks that will be employed by the multinationals. Some times it is not easy to know which group is vulnerable and which is not, as in a case where some organization provides “easy” loans to low income earners.
Will they be assisting or exploiting? Since the economically challenged as they are given loans pay interest but also benefit by getting the financial services. Again the ethical issue becomes open for discussion. Another issue in ethics in marketing is pricing. Companies undertake some unethical price manipulations. This can be price fixing, price war, variable in pricing and other many mal pricing activities. In price fixing the products will be given a certain price which does not correspond to their value or true price.
While in price war companies offering same service e. g. elephony will be involves in different pricing for the same services and each company will try to justify its own price for the service. In variable price the same product is given which different price tags the marketing company will justify this by mentioning extra transport costs or any other cost they may add or subtract. Another very important issue in ethics of marketing is advertising which is very controversial issue.
The law today states that advertiser should disclose the truth about the product, failure to tell the truth then the advertiser will have broken the law and also the moral and social responsibility of the company.But the law has loopholes and companies exploit this end. When advertising, companies tend to use violent scenes, sex and pornographic contents. Violent scenes are bad especially for children as they may ape what they see. As for sex and phonograph it degrades the morals of the society.
Another point is advertising taste, while advertising of a product can be interesting a certain group another group can be very much offended by the same. Example is as when advertising condoms there are very controversial.Some group takes it as a way of controlling AIDS and unwanted pregnancies another group will take it as promoting promiscuity. Some companies also engage in negative advertising where the advertiser will show the bad sides of the competitor instead of dwelling on showing his own good sides.
But according to code of conduct example that of American Marketing Association one of the codes is that customers should not be harmed. It also recommends that we should always avoid false and misleading advertisement. (Davidson, 2002)Let us also examine a branch of advertising which uses emotion arousing images to advertise. This has brought a lot of controversy especially on the moral aspect.
Emotional advertisement is mainly used because psychological people tend to remember advertisements that cause fear than those that don’t. The companies use emotional ads because they can influence attitudes of the consumers. The advertisement will of course lead to improved sales. The question that arises is that is it right to use such ads that cause fear, pity or annoyance to sell?Some people point out that these kinds of ads are unethical, since disturbing images are used. Some companies use psychoactive advertisement this brings in the moral ethic factor.
According to Davidson (2002), “A psychoactive ad is any emotion-arousing ad that causes a meaningful, well-defined group of viewers to fell extremely anxious, to feel hostile toward others, or to feel a loss of self-esteem. ” In view of this and since this ads can harm the viewers; it is therefore morally unethical to use them. Another issue in marketing ethics is the direct selling.The ethics issue arises from direct mails and approaches from sales people.
This interferes with someone’s privacy. Some of these mails are sent through the internet even when not requested for. Other direct marketing may come from telemarketing that will keep calling you and persuade you to buy even against your wish. This is unethical.
We also have open air direct marketing where shrills and bells are used to advertise new products and being used in auctions. This can really cause environmental concern to the public.Marketing ethics has become a big concern especially for the big corporations and the multinationals. These corporations have realized that proper marketing ethics can boost the morale of their employees and avoid internal squabbles. The companies also want to improve their sales as today’s’ customers are becoming more and more informed about the products they use thus in case they discover that the company have been short charging the whey will be a big back lash. The companies also want to avoid lawsuits and bad publicity which can lead to heavy fines and a big drop in sales.
In this line many companies today have created an ethics department which advices the companies on proper marketing ethics conduct. We have many rule and regulation governing the conduct of marketing, whose main aim is to provide a fair ground for all the players and also protect the consumers. Some of the regulations and code of conduct governing business and being regulated by American marketing association code of ethics are: • Don’t knowingly do harm • Adhere to all applicable laws and regulations • Accurately represent education, training and experience • Be truthful in your advertising/promotional claimsConclusion As we have observed, ethics in marketing is a very important subject in marketing today. Therefore marketing bodies and associations together with government should come up with proper rules of ethics in marketing that all companies and business should adhere to.
The companies should disclose all important information about a product, so that the consumers make an informed decision when buying. And for those companies that are deliberately involved in unethical marketing practices such as price fixing, let them be sued and fined heavily or even their licenses revoked.
