Nowadays, it is very important for a company to have a good marketing strategy in order to sell their product. It is not enough to have a good product because most consumers will not look for the best offer. It is easier for them to buy what other companies had already promoted. Because of the tough competition, marketers are trying to use new methods that are most likely to draw consumers’ attention. Sometimes they cross the line and their methods are considered unethical.
It is extremely difficult to set these boundaries because everybody has different opinions. This subjective topic is especially controversial when it deals with race or religion. For example, a restaurant in Bangkok called Hitler and Antonio Federici advertisement of a pregnant nun:
However, this kind of advertisement does not seem unethical to me. I agree that it can offend some people who could take it too seriously, but they will punish a company enough by simply not buying their products.
Yet, there are some boundaries that marketers cannot cross. In my opinion, it is unethical to take advantage of people that are in a situation when they do not have an alternative choice. Some people could say that students have no choice when it comes to purchasing university textbooks. As they want to succeed in their studies, they are obliged to pay, even if prices are ridiculously high. However, they agreed to pay whatever university asks, when they made a decision to become students.
A good example of unethical approach is pharmaceutical marketing. If drugs require prescriptions, marketers are trying to influence customers through physicians. They are organizing numerous conferences and dinners for doctors, sponsoring hospitals and giving some office supplies for free. Of course it is not a bad thing to do, but doctors should not be affected by these generous gestures. Nevertheless, they are.
Pharmaceutical companies spend more money on marketing than they do on research. Around $12 billion goes to the gifts for physicians each year.1 That means that these methods work and doctors prescribe their products more often than others. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhaRMA) has already taken some actions to prevent physicians from prescribing drugs that patients do not really need. Unfortunately, this problem will stay the issue of the day while there are doctors that continue accepting gifts and not thinking about their patients.
Reference:
1. http://rxethics.org/erman.pdf