Transcript class_7_-_marketing1

Marketing and Business Ethics
Micro and Macro Ethical Issues
Consumer Welfare
The provision of products and services
of appropriate quality that are
presented to prospective buyers in an
honest and comprehensive manner to
ensure to a reasonable degree the
safety, well-being, and satisfaction of
those customers.
3 Conditions for ethical legitimacy

Kantian Respect for autonomy
Utilitarian mutual benefit
1.
Consent is voluntary & informed
2.
The parties truly benefit

3.
The impacts of others not directly involved
are ethical
What are examples of
unethical marketing and
advertising?
The Ethics of Consumer
Production and Marketing







Product injuries
Deceptive selling practices
Shoddy product construction
Products that immediately break down
Warranties that are not honored
Cultural effects of advertising
Hyperconsumption
Inappropriate/unethical
Marketing?



Spectre Studios selling dolls depicting
serial killers (Jeffrey Dalmer, Ted
Bundy, etc.)?
“point-and-shoot” video games?
Nestle Infant Formula in developing
countries?
Deception From the
Design Stage
 Need more, not less - Oil of
Olay
 Notice something missing? Campbell’s Soup, OJ 1.89l…
now ice cream too (down to
1.65l)
 Quantity surcharge
Inappropriate/unethical
Marketing?
 Predictive dialing by
telemarketers?
 Planned obsolescence?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc4yko5WMEc
 Portrayal of women/girls?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz5IRdFIpvA
Andy Rooney's Tips for
Handling Telemarketers



Three little words: "Hold On, Please..."
For those annoying phone calls with no
one on the other end: hit your # button
on the phone 7 times as quickly as
possible
Junk mail help: return "ads" in pre-paid
envelopes with your payment or put
fliers in pre-paid envelopes.
Inappropriate/unethical
Advertising?




Benneton ad depicting body with HIV
stamped on it?
O$ down, walk away without paying?
PETA’s ‘Got…Beer?’ publicity
campaign?
Children and advertising (Kellogg’s
example)
Deceptive, Misleading,
Manipulating, or Just Marketing?
Where is the information?
 Omitting critical facts and ideas
 Degrees of truth-telling/lying
 Image vs reality

Externalizing the Costs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz3tPxUFGbY
How do the various ethical
theories apply to manipulation in
advertising?
Overconsumption
What are the ethical
issues?
Unsustainable Consumption
“Shop Till You Drop”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P56-zWupDcI
Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP)


Some have suggested that the
Dominant social paradigm (DSP) of
consumption/mass consumption is
central problem of western civilization
and that we need to turn to values of
local community and sustainability.
(Hawken; Korten; Schumacher;
Suzuki, …)
Consumption Culture








“The example of the Beanie Babies and happy meals
along the highway”
P&G “selling through the grapevine”
Build a Bear Workshop (birthday parties in general)
In lifetime average person watches 1 year of
advertising
42% 3 year-olds have a tv in their bedroom (Mother
and Baby)
Michael Jordan’s $10 billion brand value
“The Field Trip Goes Retail” and “The Mother of All
Malls”
American Girl Dolls & Doggie Hotels
Consumption Culture




Blurring of sacred and profane – objects
become sacred, relationships are
commercialized
Religion of consumerism
Exploiting pity for commercial purposes
People as brands, products as living
Consumption Culture
“The triumph of advertising is that
consumers feel compelled to buy and
use its products even though they see
through them.”
Horkheimer & Adorno,
Dialectic of Enlightenment
Religion of Consumerism
“Barbie is religion for girls” (Fortune
article)
“People do everything to buy it…People
think it is a real miracle” (Avon Brazil).
Consumption Conundrums

Relationship between consumption and
happiness is weak
Primary goal of national economic
policy, yet very real limits to global
consumption – mathematical
impossibility of all having what we have

The Economics of Happiness
