ETHICAL ISSUES IN MARKETING TO DIFFERENT DEMOGRAPHICS
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INTRODUCTION:
Marketing is the task of creating, promoting and delivering goods and services to consumers and businesses. Ethics in marketing is not all together a different concept or it is not performing marketing with a different concept/style but simply – “It is the function and process of marketing keeping to the standard norms of it and achieving the ends through a sound means.”
Ethics are a collection of principles of right conduct that shape the decisions people or organizations make. Practicing ethics in marketing means deliberately applying standards of fairness, or moral rights and wrongs, to marketing decision making, behavior, and practice in the organization.
In a market economy, a business may be expected to act in what it believes to be its own best interest. The purpose of marketing is to create a competitive advantage. An organization achieves an advantage when it does a better job than its competitors at satisfying the product and service requirements of its target markets. Those organizations that develop a competitive advantage are able to satisfy the needs of both customers and the organization.
As our economic system has become more successful at providing for needs and wants, there has been greater focus on organizations' adhering to ethical values rather than simply providing products. This focus has come about for two reasons. First, when an organization behaves ethically, customers develop more positive attitudes about the firm, its products, and its services. When marketing practices depart from standards that society considers acceptable, the market process becomes less efficient—sometimes it is even interrupted. Not employing ethical marketing practices may lead to dissatisfied customers, bad publicity, a lack of trust, lost business, or, sometimes, legal action. Thus, most organizations are very sensitive to the needs and opinions of their customers and look for ways to protect their long-term interests.
Their customers belong to different demographics like gender-wise, age-wise,, income-level-wise,, geographical level-wise,, marital status-wise, religion-wise, etc. The ethical issues concerning these demographic groups must be dealt very carefully. This paper focuses on ethical and unethical issues in marketing pertaining to age, gender and religion.
Second, ethical abuses frequently lead to pressure (social or government) for institutions to assume greater responsibility for their actions. Since abuses do occur, some people believe that questionable business practices abound. As a result, consumer interest groups, professional associations, and self-regulatory groups exert considerable influence on marketing. Calls for social responsibility have also subjected marketing practices to a wide range of state regulations designed to either protect consumer rights or to stimulate trade.
COMMON UNETHICAL MARKETING PRACTICES:
1. Duplication of original brands
2. Inadequacy & insufficiency in warranty offering time & service
3. Not producing quality product
4. Question mark on products safety
5. Unauthorized manufacturing of hazardous products
6. production of non-bio- degenerate plastic products which causes environmental pollution.
7. discrimination in pricing
8. differentiation in pricing
9. excessive mark-up of prices
10. misleading & deceptive advertising
11. exaggeration of product, quality , features & functionality
12. misrepresentation, omission, or misleading practice
13. making false price comparisons,
14. providing misleading suggested selling prices,
15. omitting important conditions of the sale,
16. making very low price offers
17. lowering the dignity of women
18. creating artificial scarcity
19. No fairness, transparency in relation with suppliers & retailers
SPECIAL ETHICAL ISSUES IN MARKETING TO DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS :
1. CHILDREN
Children are an important marketing target for certain products. Because their knowledge about products, the media, and selling strategies is usually not as well developed as that of adults, children are likely to be more vulnerable to psychological appeals and strong images. Thus, ethical questions sometimes arise when they are exposed to questionable marketing tactics and messages. For example, studies linking relationships between tobacco and alcohol marketing with youth consumption resulted in increased public pressure directly leading to the regulation of marketing for those products.
The proliferation of direct marketing and use of the Internet to market to children also raises ethical issues. Sometimes a few unscrupulous marketers design sites so that children are able to bypass adult supervision or control; sometimes they present objectionable materials to underage consumers or pressure them to buy items or provide credit card numbers. When this happens, it is likely that social pressure and subsequent regulation will result. Likewise, programming for children and youth in the mass media has been under scrutiny for many years.
Children who are enticed through advertising to believe that Pokemon Cereal is something they must have, will work hard to persuade their parents to buy it. The advertisers’ claim that this sugar-laden, almost non-nutrient product is “part of a nutritious breakfast” is misleading. Children who are allowed to consume sugary foods usually do so at the expense of eating other, more nutritious foods. As such, their health suffers. This applies to advertising for chips, soda pop, and numerous other “junk foods”. Children simply can’t differentiate between healthy foods and those that have little nutritional value, but they are pushed by the media to see those foods as “the best choice”. This is truly unethical. Similarly, the alcoholic beverage industry has used attractive characters to attract young adults. A good example of this is the “Spuds McKenzie” dog that was popular in the early 1990’s, which promoted the Bud Light beer product. At the same time that Joe Camel was being attacked as unethical, Budweiser Brewin.
In developing countries like India, marketing to children is controlled but loosely. State regulations place limits on the types of marketing that can be directed to children, and marketing activities are monitored by them, consumer and parental groups, and the broadcast networks. These guidelines provide clear direction to marketers.
2.ADULTS & OLD :
Older adults have become an attractive market for marketers. People over the age of fifty-five, a fast-increasing part of the population, have a growing amount of spending potential. They are rather affluent in terms of discretionary income, and many have both time and resources to devote to shopping. In the past, older adults’ spending habits were more conservative than their younger cohorts. However, in the last twenty years older adults have begun to spend at about the same rate as younger people. The older population’s expenditures cover a variety of goods and services: health care products, travel, recreational vehicles, sporting equipment, secondary homes (apartments, condos, cabins, summer homes), luxury cars, electronic equipment, home improvement, clothing, gifts, and philanthropy. Nevertheless, in many product and service areas, such as the movie and television industries, marketers still insist on targeting younger consumers.
Yet many marketers have begun to target a wider variety of products to older consumers beyond those traditionally associated with older adults. Marketers face an increasingly competitive market, and find that one way to improve their competitive position and profitability is to target an underserved and growing part of the population. Some of this interest in the older population is due to significant social and demographic shifts that result from the growth of the population of older adults. Also of interest to marketers is that older people are living longer with more active lifestyles, and life expectancies are expected to continue to increase As people age, they continue to shop, and the majority of older adults do their own shopping for goods and services.
Obviously, older people are not a homogeneous group. Their behavior regarding the purchasing and consuming of products and services varies depending on age, income, and other demographic, sociological, and health factors. Purchasing and consuming decisions will be quite different for an individual who is fifty-five years old and in good health and one who is eighty-five years old and in poor health.
Some advertisements have crossed the ethics line. The line between advertisement and entertainment are becoming nonexistent. Guerilla, stealth marketing, and product placement are the two main unethical agents in advertising. Stealth by far is the most sneaky and unethical technique in advertising. Stealth marketing is sending actors to interact with real people and casually talk up a product. These actors do not wear a name tag or a logo shirt, they appear as normal people. A great example that would best explain stealth marketing would be the Sony-Ericsson company. They invented a new cellular phone with a built in camera. They hired a group of actors to walk around Times Square in New York City posing as tourist acting as newlywed couples on a honeymoon. They would go up to strangers and ask them to take their picture
Therefore, to target these customers , many use unethical practices in marketing their products. For example : an old jumps the tre and gets flowers for her beloved.
SPECIAL ETHICAL ISSUES IN MARKETING TO DIFFERENT RELIGION
INDIA is a society of existing diversity. Markets are broken into segments in which people share some similar characteristics. Ethical issues arise when marketing tactics are designed specifically to exploit or manipulate a religious market segment. Offensive practices may take the form of negative or stereotypical representations of religions, associating the consumption of harmful or questionable products with a particular religious segment, and demeaning portrayals of a race or group. Ethical questions may also arise when high-pressure selling is directed at a group, when higher prices are charged for products sold to particular religion, or even when stores provide poorer service in neighborhoods with a high population of specific religious customers. Such practices will likely result in a bad public image and lost sales for the marketer. The firm must assess marketing efforts to determine whether ethical behavior would cause them to change their marketing practices.
Many of the ads that we see on television, newspapers and magazines use faulty thinking in their attempt to sway the public to buy their product. Manipulation is very often a main ploy of these advertisers. Ad Hominem is one of the types of faulty thinking used in political ads that really troubles. When an ad attacks a candidate because of something that has happened in his personal life, that has nothing to do with the office that he is running for or the job that he will be required to do, it poisons the well of potential voters. Many people tend to believe what they read or see in a prominent newspaper or on a network television station. It evades the real issues and becomes fallacious because of this.Another example of faulty thinking often used in political ads is post hoc ergo propter hoc, or false cause and effect.
SPECIAL ETHICAL ISSUES IN MARKETING TO DIFFERENT GENDER:
1.THE PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN MARKETING EFFORTS
As society changes, so do the images of and roles assumed by people, regardless of race, sex, or occupation. Women have been portrayed in a variety of ways over the years. When marketers present those images as overly conventional, formulaic, or oversimplified, people may view them as stereotypical and offensive.
Examples of demeaning stereotypes include those in which women are presented as less intelligent, submissive to or obsessed with men, unable to assume leadership roles or make decisions, or skimpily dressed in order to appeal to the sexual interests of males. Harmful stereotypes include those portraying women as obsessed with their appearance or conforming to some ideal of size, weight, or beauty. When images are considered demeaning or harmful, they will work to the detriment of the organization. Advertisements, in particular, should be evaluated to be sure that the images projected are not offensive.
2.THE PORTRAYAL OF MEN IN MARKETING EFFORTS
Men are presented as more intelligent, chasing women, assuming autocratic leadership roles or make decisions, or skimpily dressed in order to appeal to the sexual interests of females. Harmful stereotypes include those portraying men as obsessed with their appearance or conforming to some ideal of size, weight, or beauty in advertisements like AXE. Etc. When images are considered demeaning or harmful, they will work to the detriment of the organization.
CONCLUSION:
To put, Simply, ethics involves learning what is right or wrong, and then doing the right thing -- but "the right thing" is not nearly as straightforward as conveyed in a great deal of business ethics literature. Most ethical dilemmas in the workplace are not simply a matter of "Should Bob steal from Jack?" or "Should Jack lie to his boss?"
Many ethicists consider emerging ethical beliefs to be "state of the art" legal matters, i.e., what becomes an ethical guideline today is often translated to a law, regulation or rule tomorrow. Values, which guide how we ought to behave, are considered moral values, e.g., values such as respect, honesty, fairness, responsibility, etc. Statements around how these values are applied are sometimes called moral or ethical principles.
The concept has come to mean various things to various people, but generally it's coming to know what it right or wrong in marketing and doing what's right -- this is in regard to effects of products/services. Consequently, there is no clear moral compass to guide marketers through complex dilemmas about what is right or wrong.
Marketing is a particular field, where we find the most common unethical practices seen in day to day dealings. For long term survival of the business, we should involve ethics in marketing practices in each & every 4 p’s of marketing and also while marketing to different demographics.
Because marketing decisions often require specialized knowledge, ethical issues are often more complicated than those faced in personal life— and effective decision making requires consistency. Because each business situation is different, and not all decisions are simple, many organizations have embraced ethical codes of conduct and rules of professional ethics to guide managers and employees. However, sometimes self-regulation proves insufficient to protect the interest of customers, organizations, or society. At that point, pressures for regulation and enactment of legislation to protect the interests of all parties in the exchange process will likely occur.
REFERENCES:
American Marketing Association. (1998). American Marketing Association Code of Ethics. New York: Author.
Barnett, Tim, Bass, Ken, Brown, Frederick, and Hebert, J. (1998). "Ethical Ideology and the Ethical Judgments of Marketing Professionals." Journal of Business Ethics May: 715-723.
Bone, Paula F., and Corey, Robert J. (1998). "Moral Reflections in Marketing." Journal of Macromarketing Fall: 104-114.
Koehn, Daryl. (1999). "Business Ethics Is Not a Contradiction." San Antonio Business Journal 12(49) (January): 38.
Mahoney, Ann I. (1999). "Talking About Ethics." Association Management March: 45.
Murphy, Patrick E. (1998). "Ethics in Advertising: Review, Analysis, and Suggestions." Journal of Public Policy and Marketing Fall: 316-319.
Rallapalli, Kuman C. (1999). "A Paradigm for Development and Promulgation of a Global Code of Marketing Ethics." Journal of Business Ethics January: 125-137.
Russell, J. Thomas, and Lane, W. Ronald. (1999). Kleppner's Advertising Procedure, 14th ed. New York: Prentice Hall.
Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Children's Advertising. (1997). New York: Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
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1. Dr. Harjoth Kaur,
M.Com., MBA.,M.Phil.,B.Ed.,MEG.,NET.,Ph.D
Sree Chaitanya PG College, Karimnagar,A.P.
2. Mr. R.Venkateshwar Rao,
MBA.,(Ph.D).
Sree Chaitanya College Of Engineering,
Karimnagar,A.P.
3. Mrs. Gurupreet Kaur,
M.Com., B.Ed., (MBA)
