a) 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