Month: February 2011

Reading a fellow classmate’s recent blog post about how misleading an advertisement could be without reading the fine print made me think about marketing and its ethics. I understand Jordon’s frustration with McDonald’s sneaky promotion of its new buttermilk biscuits because I have been a victim of such misleading advertising by Rogers Wireless three years ago.

Are marketers trying to frustrate and anger people on purpose? Probably not. But then again, are they honestly concerned with the welfare of consumers or are they more concerned with the bottom line of the company? The goals of marketing shouldn’t be to simply increase short-term profits but also to establish strong long-term ethical relationships with the consumers.

The ethical relationship between marketing and the consumer is a key to the success of organizations. Consumers expect to be treated fairly and with respect. Consumers expect that the service they receive from organizations will be reliable, responsive, trustworthy, understanding, and that they are really receiving something of value. They do not want ‘lip service’, unrealistic promises, or misleading offerings. Consumers do not want to be sold products that are inherently bad for them.

All of the advertisements above all have some ethical issues to be considered. However, as long as marketers accept the challenge to become more socially responsible and consumers also bear some responsibility to research and learn about the products the purchase and use, this problem of misleading marketing should decrease.

This is a comment to a fellow classmate’s blog post.

Unlike Caleb, I don’t listen to the radio much. Although I cannot definitively say that the radio stations have never played any of Justin Bieber’s songs, I know that they are conscious of the percentage of their listeners who are die-hard Bieber fans.

The main target market of radio stations like Virgin Radio and The Beat that play mainstream pop/dance music is adults in their 20s and 30s, not so much teenage girls still in puberty crushing on Bieber. The stations offer prizes that are more geared toward adults such as a new car, a free trip for two to Mexico and a change to get your credit card bills fully paid. I can understand why they might not (that is, if they don’t) play his songs because as much as teenage girls love Bieber, not too many adults are crazy about his music.

To satisfy their listeners who have intense Bieber Fever, however, the stations have given away free concert tickets and pre-screening tickets to his new movie, “Never Say Never”.

Image source

I admit that some of his songs are catchy, that he has talent and that he has the potential to become one of the greatest artists, but I’m no Bieber fan and these freebies don’t excite me at all. From the radio stations’ perspective, though, their approach to attract or retain the Bieber fans is a good one without upsetting or losing their main target market.

I came across an article written by Professor Dae Ryun Chang that talks about the ineffectiveness of the typical Western approach to marketing in Asian countries. He criticizes certain marketing professionals who deeply believe in the language of successful marketers that everyone can use and employ, otherwise known as “Marketinguese”, and offers suggestions to keep in mind when doing business in Asia.

Image from: http://www.melodymaung.com/2009/06/western-and-asian-approach-towards.html

Image from: http://chanroeun.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/western-vs-asian-culture

Coming from a Korean background and having lived in both Western and Asian countries, I certainly understand Professor Dae’s argument. There are differences in culture, race, religion, values, politics, society and lifestyles. Ignoring these differences would definitely lead to a failure of the marketing strategy. Marketers from Western cultures need to understand that Asian consumers engage with the products, services and brands from a very different cultural perspective. For example, Korea has an extremely strong national pride and the entire country becomes one cohesive unit especially during the World Cup or the Olympics. Korea, however, is also a quite segregated nation with some people who do not want to be associated with others from certain cities or regions. By province, there are different dialects, hobbies, food, personalities and preferred lifestyles, and if Western marketers did not do enough research or made segmentation target errors, the results from their strategies would not be all that successful.

I have always been annoyed when Western people group all the Asian countries into one. Your ethnicity, religion and cultural background don’t seem to matter all that much as long as you have black hair, eat rice and use soy sauce in cooking. I think this is the biggest mistake that even the biggest companies make during their global expansion into Asian countries: they have a rather broad target market and an even broader marketing approach. Asia is NOT a country. Each Asian country has a distinct culture and the more local a marketing strategy is, the more likely it is to be successful.