1. Do you feel ethical
guidelines make a difference to marketers?
According
to the code of ethics of the American Marketing Association, “marketers must
accept responsibility for the consequences of their activities and make every
effort to ensure that their decisions, recommendations and actions function to
identify, serve and satisfy all relevant publics: customers, organizations and
society” (Code of Ethics, n.d.). In my opinion, ethical guidelines should make
a difference to marketers, as this will avoid marketers from doing harm to
people, organizations, and society. Imagine buying a shaving razor that
marketers market as “… so razor sharp you only need one blade”. But it turns
out that the blade of the razor is so dull that people begin to press the razor
against their skin and it cuts into the skin of a few customers. As it can be
seen, it seems unethical for marketers to lie to consumers about the actual
product and what it does. This can cause the organization great financial harm that
may lead to bankruptcy and closing of the company. Overall, marketing ethical
guidelines ensures the public their safety and health.
2. How can companies balance the need to
win with being ethical?
Great question! I think that a great
code of ethics, culture and organizational values can lead the way to ethical
decision-making that will result in the organization’s financial well being.
It’s important for the organization to remain proactive about ethics and ensure
that its employees have a sense or ethical mind set when making decisions. In
my opinion, if employees have an understanding of ethics and professionalism,
there shouldn’t be a problem or issue when making decisions ethically. As
Michelle Ong explains “Being ethical pays both in long-term sustainable profits
and as a cost-cutting measure. Using the concept of ethical business as a
strategy can thus be advantageous as business decisions are made based on
balance sheets and through cost-benefit analysis” (Ong, 2014). In other words,
an organization that follows ethical standards can be profitable. I would even
argue that as business history has shown us, organizations that follow or fall
on the trap of unethical practices/standards loose profit and eventually go out
of business. So being ethical has its benefits and advantages.
3. Is it ethical to track your buying
habits or web visits to target you for marketing purposes?
From my understanding of website
tracking and buying habits, I find it that organizations who track consumer
spending habits on their own website is helpful and not unethical as it will
help them understand and know what you are looking for, what you look at, what
you desire/want, etc. However, I find it unethical for tracker websites who
track our spending and website visiting habits, 3rd party trackers,
to sell our information to other organizations. A plausible slippery slope
argument may even be that companies like these sell our privacy to unknown
companies. Therefore, understanding that organizations need spending habits and
web visiting information in order to remain competitive and profitable,
organizations should give consumers the option to have their habits tracked and
the information sold. I know that I don’t want my information sold to anyone
but everyone is entitled to his or her own opinions and views. In other words,
it depends on the ethic and moral principles of the person.
As a side note:
“The Wall Street Journal's What They Know series documents the new,
cutting-edge uses of this Internet-tracking technology. The Journal analyzed
the tracking files installed on people's computers by the 50 most popular U.S.
websites” (Wall Street Journal, n.d.). This information can be viewed in the
following link: http://blogs.wsj.com/wtk/ This information can help paint a picture of which
websites use the tracking technology to track consumer habits to gain
information on the targeted audience. It also helps us see which websites expose
our habits to unknown organizations.
4. As a leader, how will you manage the
ethical aspects of your marketing efforts?
As a leader I would make sure that
the marketers are following the ethical guidelines/standards of the American
Marketing Association. I would also make sure that all employees are following
the code of ethics and organizational values of the organization we are working
for. This will help everyone have a moral compass or guideline in which to base
their decisions on when conflicting principles arise. Lastly, I would make a
habit of each quarter reviewing or assessing the ethical practices of the
organization. During such meetings we may review the code of ethics of the
organization as a reminder of the rules we must abide by.
Reference:
Code of Ethics.
(n.d.). College of Business Administration| California State University, Long
Beach. Retrieved July 2, 2014, from http://www.csulb.edu/colleges/cba/marketing/code-of-ethics/
Ong, M. (2014).
Ethical business: profit-making strategy or moral obligation?. Hijacked.
Retrieved July 2, 2014, from http://hijacked.com.au/ethical-business-profit-making-strategy-or-moral-obligation
Wall Street
Journal. (n.d.). What They Know - WSJ. What They Know RSS. Retrieved July 2,
2014, from http://blogs.wsj.com/wtk/
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