So I was discussing about marketing ethics with my roommate and we stumbled on the topic of Lululemon and the Winter Olympics. In 2009, when Vancouver was getting pumped up for the Winter Olympics, Lululemon decided to launch a clothing edition that was specially designed for the Winter Olympics, called “Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 Edition.” This caused a huge uproar because Lululemon was not an official sponsor of the Winter Olympics, and the organizers feels that it is taking advantage of the hype. Yet, Lululemon is not found to be guilty of breaking any law.
Does it mean that it was right for Lululemon to “act” as if they were a sponsor of the event? The only reason I can think of to say that it was okay for Lululemon to do so was the fact that it didn’t go against the law. I guess that implies that people are “reading between the lines” and that it was up to people’s interpretation as to what Lululemon was talking about. On the other hand, I guess if everyone thinks that it’s related to the Winter Olympics, it doesn’t matter if Lululemon wants to deny it or not, because the public will still perceive what they want to perceive, and ultimately decide if they want to buy Lululemon’s products or not. Therefore, if the public is hyped up for Lululemon’s products, who can blame Lululemon for choosing a “good” marketing strategy that gets them the profit that they want?
Here’s the article that I was looking at if anyone’s interested:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2009/12/16/consumer-lululemon-olympics.html
Quote of the post:
What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public. ~Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 1964