Ethical concerns can arise in every element of the marketing
mix.
Ethical concerns can arise in the development of
products/services. Marketers are supposed to identify and satisfy
needs of consumers. Products offered do not always contribute to
satisfying existing needs but sometimes create new needs through
the promotion of materialism. It appears not to be ethical from
marketers to forget the first role of marketing at the benefit of
mercantilism.
Ethical concerns can also appear in the performance of
products/services. Ethical marketing activity should prevent poorly
made and unsafe products. Products not made well or products
delivering little benefit or less benefit than promised are
commonplace criticism made to marketers.
Packaging can also be a source of ethical concerns.
Exaggerating packaging (for example through design) or misleading
labels cannot be considered ethical, because they aim at deceiving
consumers by making them believe a pack contains more product than
it does in reality or by giving unclear/incomprehensible
information.
For example,A company sells a litchi/raspberry juice that
claims to be a “refreshing and exotic”.Yet, this fruit juice
contains more apple than litchi plus raspberry together. The
ingredient label indicates 27% of apple juice, 15% of litchi juice
and 8% of raspberry juice (plus water, sugar and citric acid). The
product is sold as a raspberry/litchi juice, while it is closer to
an apple juice.
The most commonplace ethical concern in promotion is
deception.Deception is commonplace in advertising. For example,
overstating a product’s feature or performance is contrary to the
ethics.
Deception in advertising can be either an exaggeration of
products’ attributes (for example, a shampoo that helps fighting
dandruff in 2 weeks whereas results are significant only after one
month) or a unrealistic statement about products’ performance (for
example, a pill that would help lose 30 Lbs. in one week).
Dove soap, for instance, ran a widely seen ad campaign
featuring “real” models. The ad was meant to promote realistic body
images and encourage girls to love the way they looked even if they
were not supermodels. However, other Dove ads both during and since
featured stereotypically beautiful models whose images have been
altered to hide imperfections. Dove marketed ethically in one
campaign and unethically in another.
Deception can also appear in sales promotion. Consumers desire
to obtain more for the same price and are therefore sensitive to
sales promotion like free gift, price reduction or special offers.
The ethical risk is that companies may be tempted to take advantage
of customers by making promises and promotions that cannot be
kept.
Most frequently found problems are rigged contests or games
(e.g., when winners are known by marketers before the end of the
contest or when no one wins the game) and the use of deceptive or
false promises (e.g., failure to provide a promised premium or
failure to provide a gift in conformity to what was promised).
Another ethical concern is the invasiveness of marketers in the
everyday life of consumers and the threats to consumers’ rights to
privacy. For example, it is not ethical from marketers to send
unwanted spams to consumers, because such emails violate
regulations about consumers’ privacy.
Marketers should be allowed to charge any price they want
provided there is no price discrimination among consumers and that
prices are all inclusive.However, too high prices are not ethical,
when they do not reflect the existing cost structure but are a
means to take advantage of consumers. This is especially true in
the case of monopolies, oligopolies or cartels.
Consumers can be manipulated without knowing it through subtle
marketing techniques in distribution outlets. For example, shelves
at lower heights target children, and stores can be organised in
such a way that it encourages consumers to pass through more
shelves. The ethical concern of such practices is whether
subliminal incentives are morally acceptable.
Ethical concerns are also linked with the segmenting, targeting
and positioning process.Efforts to target consumer populations can
be subject to unethical attitudes (e.g.: particularly vulnerable
consumer populations, such as children, the poorest minorities, and
the uneducated).