Ethical marketing
Marketing, like the power of suggestion, carries a great deal of persuasion. And that’s why I wanted to explore the topic of ethical marketing. Effective marketing lies in its ability to persuade the consumer. In his book, Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, Dr. Robert Cialdini explains the result of effective persuasion. “There's a critical insight in all this for those of us who want to learn to be more influential. The best persuaders become the best through pre-suasion - the process of arranging for recipients to be receptive to a message before they encounter it. To persuade optimally, then, it's necessary to pre-suade optimally. But how?In part, the answer involves an essential but poorly appreciated tenet of all communication: what we present first changes the way people experience what we present to them next.” Marketing is the creative edge that separates one product from another in a competitive market. However, in today’s saturated marketplace, boundaries can be crossed in the creative lengths we take. We’re familiar with spin: emphasizing the favorable while deemphasizing the unfavorable. Political seasons are prime examples when we see the lines of ethics blurred in the name of marketing.The result is a love-hate relationship with marketing. We love when they inform us of what we want. But we hate when they interrupt our lives. We enjoy the pure entertainment of Super Bowl ads. But we pay for Spotify Premium because the video commercials are disruptive to our listening experience.
Marketing: a young industry with early infamy
In “The History of Marketing Thought” Robert Bartels explains that “Marketing is essentially a means of meeting and satisfying certain needs of people. It is a highly developed and refined system of thought and practice characteristic of a period in the development of market economy.”But today, the general public believes the marketing industry has overstepped this simple idea. 96% of people believe that the advertising and marketing industry does not act with integrity. The advertising and marketing industry is viewed as less trustworthy than the pharmaceutical industry, the federal government, and U.S. Congress. 69% of the general public attribute their lack of trust to the advertisers’ desire to sell more.This lack of trust has moved beyond simply ignoring today’s barrage of marketing messages. In the 2005 essay, A dangerous divergence: marketing and society, Jagdish N Sheth, Rajendra S Sisodia explain how you and I now oppose the steady stream of marketing.
“A study by Yankelovich in 2004 (Smith, Clurman, and Wood 2005) found that many consumers have moved from simply ignoring marketing to actively resisting and, in some cases, fighting it. More than 60% of respondents believe that marketing and advertising are “out of control,” and 70% try to tune out as much marketing and advertising as possible. Approximately half of the respondents said that the quantity of marketing and advertising negatively affects their experience of everyday life. These negative attitudes are much stronger than are those that Bauer and Greyser (1968) report in their study for the American Association of Advertising Agencies. Bauer and Greyser estimate that 15% of consumers are “serious resisters” of advertising, whereas Yankelovich’s 2004 research finds that 60% of the population are serious resisters, and approximately 70% are interested in products that help them skip, block, or opt out of marketing and advertising. It appears that marketing practices have become worse as products have become better. Surprisingly, Yankelovich’s research shows that few marketing executives understand the rising hostility that consumers have toward the ways that marketing is conducted (Smith, Clurman, and Wood 2005).”
Modern marketing is still a relatively young practice. The concept of marketing didn’t come about until the rise of competing markets during the Industrial Revolution. But it wasn’t until the market saturation in the 1960s that professionals were employed in direct marketing roles.
What makes someone more likely to be influenced by marketing?
The problems that arise within marketing often have little to do with what is being sold, but rather who they are being sold to. You might consider big tobacco’s fruity flavored products directed toward young consumers. Ethical lines can quickly be crossed when it comes to preying on a lack of education or taking advantage of someone’s age. But we can all fall prey to similar tactics. We all have a weakness that can be exposed by effective marketing.It’s not only the alcoholic lewered by whiskey billboard or a gambler tempted by the sight of a slot machine. We all become vulnerable for our own reason. And as we dive deeper into this discussion, the question must be asked: Is it unethical to capitalize on a consumer’s weakness? Or is it just good marketing?
Unethical marketing
Before we can answer the question of “What is ethical marketing?” we need to answer the question “What is unethical marketing?”In a 2017 Forbes article, Jason DeMers posed the same question: “So what qualifies as “unethical” in the marketing world? Ethics are obviously open to debate; they’re a matter of philosophy, rather than science, so there’s no coherent intrinsic ethical stance that is proven to be the right one. However, while it’s noble to have your practices guided by internal beliefs, the real gauge here is how your consumers react to your ads, and what they believe about your business.”Clearly, the idea of ethics can be a difficult concept to explain. The definition is subjective to each individual defining it. Placing your ideology aside, what’s ethical in one society may be completely decent in another. The concept demands a definition of moral standards. Ethics can be defined as “the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.”The definition clearly demands one to take account of his own moral code. Moral can be defined as “relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior”Regardless of belief or principle, there are universal concepts we can agree upon. We can agree that law should be a guiding standard when defining what is right or wrong. Never is there room for practices that go beyond law. This understanding would be static throughout all global cultures. But beyond law, moral influence depends on the individual.What’s moral to me may be immoral to you. So you and I must agree that there must be flexibility of society’s definition of ethical marketing practices.In “The History of Marketing Thought,” Robert Bartels explains what led to the unscrupulous practices of the marketing industry.
“During the 1960‟s a major change in marketing thought began, namely, the inclusion of society in marketing theory and practice. Marketing is viewed not merely in the context of the total market system, or even the socio-market system, but the total social system as expressed by Lazer and Kelley. The result is a movement from the consideration of profits or sales only, to a consideration of the societal implications and dimensions of marketing decisions and action. Marketing managers dealt further with market conflict faced with the full blow of social demands. lack of concern for quality of life preference for sales volume and profits imbalance between producers and consumer in the market place exploitation of the poor and disadvantaged failure to provide opportunities for minority group members waste of resources, pollution of the environment invasion of privacy of citizens deceptive advertising and promotion default in warranties and guarantees imbalance between marketing power and larger social objectives promotion of the dogma of materialism bureaucratic neglect and corporate disregard of the public. A new era had begun which demanded a metamorphosis of marketing philosophy...consumerism, social issues, marketing and society and finally with social marketing.”
A thriving economy led to greater competition within industries. As a result, marketers were forced to find new solutions to reach their quotas. Unfortunately, the ends didn’t always justify the means. Rising pressures lead to negative social and environmental consequences. Unethical marketing is more than inflating numbers, misleading figures, or blatant lies...although those are obviously unethical tactics.We still see large corporations covering up hidden agendas and scandal through marketing. The snake oil salesman has learned a thing or two since its introduction in the late 19th century.Today, unethical practices have been shrouded within pretty advertising and colorful packaging. But when boiled down, you can see the true tendencies at their core. Such examples would include preying on an uneducated demographic or taking advantage of the elderly. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.The power of effective marketing should never be underestimated. I agree wholeheartedly with Edward Bulwer-Lytton: “the pen is mightier than the sword.” It’s not without reason that many copywriting books warn the reader of the power that lies within the art.In some respects, we’ve wisened up. We’re no longer peddling candy cigarettes to attract future consumers. Today’s unethical practices come about by privacy policies, data collection, and complex algorithms. As consumers, we’ve unknowingly given over much of the anonymity we once had. As a result, we’ve become willing members of regular data breaches. But even within these seemingly deceitful methods, the question should be asked: who’s guilty? The consumer that provides the information or the company that exploits it?We didn’t get to this point overnight.
Gray areas of marketing
We can both agree there’s never room for marketing tactics that step outside the lines of the law. But demanding an entire industry follow a moral compass leads us into murky waters. On an individual level, we can agree there on the existence of gray area marketing. Political marketing is no stranger to the concept. In fact, when running low on dirt, political strategists are known to suggest possibilities leaving the voter to draw his own conclusion. Is this unethical? Not necessarily.And let’s not forget about the use of numbers. Numbers don’t lie, they’re cold hard fact. But the manipulators behind them can. I’m often amused at the stats compiled by sports broadcasters…They can be masters at scraping together the most wonderful statistics from the most boring situations. “For you viewers at home: today marks this player’s 123rd at-bat on a Tuesday in the regular season wearing ankle height socks. Remarkable, isn’t it?”It's a ridiculous example, but you get the idea. Countless times I’ve been impressed by a statistic heard while watching a sporting event. But after considering it I begin to wonder: How many similar statistics exist due to a sheer length of time. If you’re 35 years old and today’s your birthday, did you know that this morning was the 12,775th time you’ve woken up (give or take a few days depending on the number of all-nighters you’ve pulled)?In addition to making completely ordinary statistics seem inspiring, statisticians can also highlight attractive figures while neglecting unpleasant ones. And of course, we have spin. A favorite utensil in the political toolbelt. It’s not only used in government politics, but it’s also used throughout Hollywood, Wall Street, and corporate America. We can explain away anything. And we often do. Today’s most alarming news can be spun away into just another 3:00 news segment we both forget a couple weeks later.And since we’re talking about gray areas of marketing, we could also discuss cause-related marketing. Cause-related marketing can be defined “as any partnership between a business and charity which markets an image, product or service for mutual benefit.” To the casual observer, these partnerships may seem completely generous. But as Sue Adkins, Business In The Community’s director of marketing points out, these tactics are often interpreted as exploitative. "This is not about corporate philanthropy[...]It's about commercial benefit for both cause and company. Any business which tries to project this sort of campaign as strings-free giving is heading for a fall; the public is not gullible."Research has shown that we don’t entirely support such marketing practices like we once did. Some feel that cause-related marketing is exploitative and feel it’s inappropriate for businesses to become involved in social issues.And then we come the secret tactics of “growth hacking.” These are the marketing tactics used by companies looking to take a non-traditional path to growth. These tactics have been as simple as exaggerating results or even adding unsuspecting participants to your email lists. But the methods of obtaining rapid growth can be much more complex. Consider Uber’s method of booking thousands of Lyft rides in order to capture the market segment. Or the many social platforms who create fake accounts in order to attract early users.Are these tactics unethical – no, not necessarily. In many accounts, we wouldn’t have the widely used products or services we enjoy today without these. But these strategies provide interesting debate.
Annoying marketing tactics aren’t unethical
Just because a marketing tactic is annoying does mean it’s unethical. Consider retargeting pixels. Is it always enjoyable to see the pair of shoes your wife looked at following you around the internet? Not necessarily. But growing competition and saturated markets demand ingenuity.I recall a conversation I had in the early days of retargeting pixels. A former coworker couldn’t believe how “they knew what she was shopping for.” She was convinced the government was spying on her. And since the late 1990s, our web browsing experience has often been interrupted by pop up ads. They’re intrusive, but we must stop and realize: without them, many of the services we enjoy for free wouldn’t exist. Similar to tolerating the ad segments of your favorite sports talk show. Ads, no matter how annoying, are what allow these services to continue.Are there times these marketing tactics step beyond their bounds? Absolutely. From billboards to sidebars, airport security bins to field goal posts nets, it seems that our entire landscape is being blanketed by marketing. A growing concern of nostalgic consumers is that eventually, we’ll be walking through one continuous marketing campaign. But, before you call doom and gloom on the marketing industry let’s not forget the benefits they provide. The internet as a whole is free because of marketing. Without it, websites, blogs, podcasts, and your favorite cat videos would all go away.
So what is ethical marketing?
Now that we covered what is not black and white ethical marketing, we’re still left with the question: What is ethical marketing?Ethical marketing is marketing for good. Not just for nonprofits and religious campaigns. Since the beginning, marketing was created to inform potential consumers of the benefits they could be enjoying.Rather than sleazy late night infomercial trying to steal the remaining dollars of grandma’s pension, it’s the pharmaceutical company informing her of the new generic drug that will save her hundreds of dollars each month.Yes, I said pharmaceutical company. When it comes to marketing, there are guilty parties on all sides of the fence. Was it not the ancient religious leaders who often took advantage of the poor? Even now we see seemingly good politicians and non-profits exposed for their dirty tactics.But I’m not here to shame politicians, non-profits, or even snake oil salesmen. We’re here to discuss ethical marketing and its value in the marketplace.
The value of ethical marketing
Ethical marketing has value. There’s a growing mistrust on every level of society. Cynicism has become a part of our culture’s DNA. The value of ethical marketingBut good, wholesome ethical marketing benefits everyone.
It benefits the consumer
Through ethical marketing, the consumer gets what he expected. And when the customer gets what he paid for, generally speaking, this equals customer satisfaction. And customer satisfaction is good for the customer and the company selling the product or service.
It benefits the company marketing the product or service
The immediate result is fewer product returns, customer satisfaction, and fewer lawsuits.The long-term effect is a good reputation. As a 2009 McKinsey Quarterly article noted, “Now more than ever, it will be action—not spin—that builds strong reputations.”Take Allegiant Airlines’ 3 star Skytrax rating (based on a 10-star scale). Much of the following out they’re experiencing is the result of the 2018 60 Minutes report. Whether good or bad, a reputation is priceless.PR nightmares can result in millions of dollars of recalls, legal fees, and general distrust. But Target is the perfect example that a reputation can be repaired.Most have already forgotten about the department store’s 2013 security breach that led to a loss of 40 million customer records. The result cost the CEO and company had to pay $148 million to repair. Rather than falling apart, the company quickly admitted their mistake, make company-wide changes, and improved its security. As a result, they’ve remained nearly everyone’s favorite department store.But not all corporate blunders are handled with grace. When companies choose to point the finger elsewhere or placate the public through political spin, the result is mistrust.There’s a general mistrust, an innate skepticism that’s been bred within society. We’ve been taught to never take anything at face value. We no longer believe in corporations, politics, or government leaders. For the most part, we believe that most institutions have ulterior motives.It’s lead to a new philosophy. We accept the company for what it is. We use the product because we need it. And this is why current generations ingest their news via Twitter, Reddit, and other social platforms. We want the information, but we don’t trust the method of delivery.Is marketing to blame? I would say no. But in many situations, marketing has been the method of delivery for such practices. Marketing is the mouthpiece of corporate and political America. It can be used for good. ConclusionWe all want to be heard: you do… I do… corporations do… and so does the politician running for office. Whether it’s a product, a service, a political view, an ideology – everyone wants to market their product. But at what cost? At what point do ethics impact our marketing?