Ethical Debates in Marketing

Chapter-4
 Learning Outcomes
• Learn about some ethical criticisms of
marketing practice including: marketing
research; advertising; and product and brand
management.
 MARKETING ETHICS: A DEFINITION AND
SCOPE
• Standards of conduct and moral judgment applied to
marketing practice
• The systematic study of how moral standards are applied to
marketing decisions, behaviors and institutions
• Defining the scope of marketing ethics is also difficult, as the
literature on marketing ethics is both complex and extensive.
• Focus on specific issues such as marketing research,
consumer issues, managerial issues and marketing education
issues.
• Evolved into a specific sub-discipline
WHAT ROLE FOR MARKETING ETHICS?
• Marketing ethics might offer guidelines to marketers
• how theories of marketing ethics might translate
into application
• Normative approach, which aims to prescribe ethical
standards and offer guidelines regarding marketing
practice;
• positive approach, which aims to describe and
understand ethical practices through empirical work.
 Deontological Theories
• focus on the behaviors of the individual, specifically
the principles used to arrive at the ethical decision.
• that persons should act in such a way that their
maxim for action could be a universal law
• the focus is on the behavior itself and actions are
judged by their inherent wrongness or rightness.
• “best” set of rules to live by some principles from a
range of sources as the family, religion, politics, etc.
 Teleological Theories
• emphasis on perceived outcomes rather than
behaviors.
• They propose that individuals should make
judgments based on an evaluation of the likely
consequences of their actions.
• Ethical egoism suggests that individuals should
act in their own interests
• Utilitarianism strives to produce the greatest
good for the greatest number of people.
A Normative Role for Marketing Ethics
• What marketing organizations or individuals ought to do or
what kinds of marketing systems a society ought to have
• ‘exchange, because it is social, must have its outcomes
evaluated in terms of fairness or rightness on all
marketplace parties ’
• whistle blowing (or threatening to blow the whistle), and
negotiation, are potentially the most advantageous courses
of action.
• a set of perspectives to guide marketing activity: seven
basic perspectives (BP) are as listed below:
• BP1: Ethical marketing puts people first.
• BP2: Ethical marketers must achieve a behavioral standard
in excess of the law.
• BP3: Marketers are responsible for whatever they intend as
a means or ends as a marketing action.
• BP4: Marketing organizations should cultivate better (i.e.
higher) moral imagination in their managers and employees.
• BP5: Marketers should articulate and embrace a core set of
ethical principles.
• BP6: Adoption of a stakeholder orientation is essential to
ethical marketing decisions.
• BP7: Marketing organizations ought to delineate an ethical
decision making protocol.
 A Positive Role for Marketing Ethics
• authors have developed a series of frameworks in
order to better understand ethical decision-making
in marketing
• four constructs are considered, these include (1) the
perceived consequences of each alternative for
various stakeholder groups, (2) the probability that
each consequence will occur to each stakeholder
group, (3) the desirability or undesirability of each
consequence, and (4) the importance of each
stakeholder group
 ETHICAL CRITICISMS OF MARKETING
PRACTICE
• Marketing Research and Segmentation
• Advertising
• Product and Brand Management
 Marketing Research and Segmentation

• both the practices of data collection and the subsequent use of this data
present ethical challenges.
• the duty not to engage in deceptive practices;
• the duty not to invade privacy;
• Organizations have been accused of inappropriate stereotyping and the
passing on of personal details to other organizations.
• Data can also easily be manipulated and/or presented in a particular light to
tell the story the organization wants to tell.
• when data is used to the consumer’s disadvantage by linking purchase histories
with personal details, organizations build up a relatively clear picture of the
consumers ’ daily lives, not only their age, gender, occupation and place of
residence, but also what they eat and drink, and even the personal hygiene
products they use.
• Vulnerable groups might include children, teens, older consumers
 Advertising
• advertising has been criticized on two levels:
• at the micro level the content and type of some messages has been cause for concern
• at the macro level the wider effects of advertising on society have been questioned
• On the micro level, advertisements have been criticized for excessive portrayal of violence,
the elicitation of negative emotions such as shock, fear and guilt
• vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly and those on low incomes has also been a
target for criticism.
• elderly consumers are substantially discriminated against, not only by being marginalized
generally in marketing activity, but also by being negatively stereotypically portrayed in
advertisements.
• Advertisements have also been accused of promoting increased levels of anxiety and
insecurity in society because they typically encourage processes of social comparison against
idealized images.
• The negative influence of advertising on young women’s body image has been a particular
cause for concern, and the use of very thin models in fashion
• On the macro level the key issue for critics is the role that advertising might play in
manipulate consumer expectations and desire for products and services and arise
irrationality, selfishness, anxiety, social competitiveness, powerlessness and/or a loss of self
respect ’
 Product and Brand Management
• what degree of disclosure does a product
manager owe consumers who will be using the
organization’s branded product?
• what responsibilities do product managers and
retailers have related to the social ramifications
of their products?
• issue of social responsibility becomes obvious
when we think about potentially harmful
products such as alcohol, tobacco and fast foods.