Sunday, November 8, 2009

What are the main ethical issues of marketing?

Ethical issues in Marketing

Marketing ethics deals with the moral principles behind the operation and regulation of marketing. Possible fundamental frameworks of analysis for marketing audit are:

· Value-oriented framework, ethical problems on the basis of the values which they infringe e.g. honesty, autonomy, privacy, transparency.

· Stakeholder-orientated framework , analyzing ethical problems on the basis of whom they affect e.g. consumers, competitors, society as a whole

· Process-orientated framework, analyzing ethical problems in terms of the categories used by marketing specialists e.g. research, price, promotion, placement

Specific issues in marketing ethics:

Ø Market research: ethical danger points in marketing research include:

- Invasion of privacy

- Stereotyping

Ø Market audience: ethical danger points include

- targeting the vulnerable e.g. children, the elderly

- Excluding potential customers from the market: selective marketing is used to discourage demand from undesirable market sectors or disenfranchise them altogether.

Ø Pricing ethics: list of unethical pricing practice:

- Price fixing

- Price skimming

- Price discrimination

- Price wars

- Bid rigging

- Dumping

Ø Advertising and promotion: ethical pitfall:

- Issues over truth and honesty

- Issues with violence, sex and profanity

- Taste and controversy

- Negative advertising

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