Month: September 2012

As children grow up, their parents stress upon them the importance of safely using the internet: never releasing too much personal information, and always using caution when signing “terms and Conditions” and consent forms. My analysis demonstrates however, that more and more frequently, companies make it difficult to avoid giving personal information, and make it so that when you do give it out, they are able to publicly release it, without any liability issues.

This is not solely my opinion; a similar point of view was also voiced by Iakiv Iagolnitser in his Blog. Iakiv talks specifically about Facebook and how the more information their users make public, the more money the website makes. There is clearly not much incentive for the website to offer personal protection; rather there is a fairly large motivation to try and get people’s information to be public. Before reading my classmate’s blog, I naively believed that because Facebook offered so many privacy settings, the website must be safe. I now see that this is not accurate. Although Facebook offers various privacy settings, they are frequently updating them, and simultaneously, making a whole new wave of users’ information available to the public, without the users knowing.

As marketing reporter Susan Krashinsky posts in her article, “The research findings raise concerns for the privacy rights of Canadians. Web leakage can involve the disclosure of personal information without an individual’s consent– or even knowledge”. This breach in confidentiality, thus far, cannot cause liability issues. At this point in time, it is just bad business ethics.

Is there a point when companies’ marketing tactics go from being effective to highly unethical? I believe there exists such a point. As it turns out, Dove does as well.

In 2004, Dove launched a campaign called The Dove^® Campaign for Real Beauty. The idea behind the campaign is to promote real beauty. To do this, Dove created ads using real women, in their natural state; at no point in the process were they graphically edited, modified or photo shopped.

Before Dove’s campaign the majority of companies used models who were underweight and suffering from eating disorders. Photos of these models were digitally transformed to make their appearances more appealing. When the photos were released they were of girls who had had their faces morphed by professional photo-shoppers until the photo looked more like a barbie doll than the real girl. They were not however, solely releasing a photo, but a false definition of beauty. Girls all around the world tried to look like these models, and when they could not compete with the edited photos, they lost self-esteem, were more self-conscious and a whole lot less confident. Companies and their marketing teams had managed to redefine “beauty”.  In 2004 a study was done, and results showed that because of all the unethical techniques these companies used, only  2% of women around the world could describe themselves as beautiful (Social Mission Article, Dove).

Media has such a huge impact on young children, and when companies start having control over a young girl’s self esteem and self worth, it’s unacceptable. I strongly believe that when a girl sees photos these “perfect” models, her definition of “beauty” can’t help but be swayed. Dove saw that many marketing techniques were becoming very unethical, and seized the opportunity to come up with a technique that was effective and ethical. It was at this point that Dove started the campaign for real beauty, in the hopes of re-instating the original definition of beauty and to help every girl “[grow] up with the self-esteem she needs to reach her full potential” (About the Movement, Dove).

Video: The Dove Evolution

The BYOB is a law recently instated in the province of British Columbia allowing customers to bring their own bottle of wine into restaurants. Will the law be equally beneficial to everyone?

The new rule will be beneficial to upscale restaurants. Generally, customers who visit these places are not overly concerned with the prices, and are not opposed to splurging on a nice bottle of wine. The demand for wine, in these situations, is said to be inelastic. Customers at fancy restaurants will choose to purchase a bottle of wine, rather than bringing their own, because it is all part of the experience, it’s convenient, they may get to try a new type of wine, and because to them, the price is irrelevant.

Contrarily, if the restaurant is a lower end restaurant, its customers are frequently more price-conscious or short on money. These restaurant may not benefit from having the BYOB rule, as many of their customers may try and save some money by bringing their own bottle of wine. In an interview, a manager at Earls, states that she does not approve of the law because “our profit is very high on wine” (Jennifer Saltman, The Province). Consequently, the restaurant does not earn the money it would normally make on alcohol.

In conclusion, we can see that the new wine rule at restaurants cannot be generalized and will not have the same effect on every restaurant. Whether the restaurant will benefit or not is all relative to the type of restaurant it is, the type of customers who attend and to how much money the customers are used to spending.

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