Ethical Issues in Marketing

Marketing ethics involve ethics to deal with moral principles behind the operation and regulation of marketing (1). In the video “Marketing’s Top 5 Ethics Issues”, James Coplin lists five factors which makes marketing ethical (2). Honesty, fairness, social responsibility, transparency, and respect. In order to earn more profit, companies show irresponsibility on producing and selling products. Products may contain illegal and toxic ingredients, unclear labels of nutrition facts and incorrect net weight. In China, milk powder(brand name: San Lu) contain banned chemicals and this leads to kidney stones in infants (3). Many children died because of tainted milk powder. Why does this company put illegal ingredients in milk powder and make children sick? I think money is the biggest reason. This company makes up the nutrition fact label which makes parents believe the milk powder contain protein. Also, they sell their products at cheap prices, which makes customers buy a lot. Therefore, the company uses the cheapest ingredients to produce milk powder and sell it at low price, which in return gives the company huge amount of profit. In attempt to earn profit, the company does not care about the bottom line of marketing. That is, the irresponsibility and dishonesty cause many Chinese infants dead or hurt. Another example of dishonesty is ” Unethical Advertising”(4). The advertisement states that 3G iphone is fast but in fact, it is slow. Sometimes the advertisement makes dramatic effects and makes customers believe the effects are true. The reason probably is to sell their products and earn more money. Failures in achieving ethical factors threaten consumers’ life and money and lead to corruption of the relationship between customers and producers. Therefore, being honest and responsible can establish long term relationship with customers and makes more profit.

1. (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_ethics).
2. (Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH-VK3t45UI).
3. (Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePB-kp3cotU).
4. (Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRNvhGND7Kc).