Ethical issues, marketing and the consumer

Area of marketing Some common ethical Main rights involved

problems
Product policy Product safety Right to safe and efficacious products
Fitness for purpose

Marketing Deception Right to honest and fair

communications Misleading claims communications
Intrusiveness
Promotion of materialism Right to privacy
Creation of artificial wants
Marketing Perpetuating dissatisfaction
management Reinforcing stereotypes

Pricing Excessive pricing Right to fair prices

Price fixing
Predatory pricing
Deceptive pricing

Distribution Buyer-seller relationships Right to engage in markets

Gifts and bribes
Slotting fees Right to make a free choice

Marketing strategy Targeting vulnerable Right to be free from discrimination

consumers Right to basic freedoms and amenities
Consumer exclusion

Market research Privacy issues Right to privacy

 Ethical issues in marketing strategy –
customer exclusion
• Takes variety of forms
• Access exclusion
• Condition exclusion
• Price exclusion
• Marketing exclusion
• Self-exclusion
Ethical issues in Marketing(contd.)

▣ Advertising –
□ Surrogate Advertising
□ Deceptive Advertising
□ Puffery
□ Stereo typing
□ Advertising to children

▣ Distribution –
□ Tying Arrangement
□ Black Marketing
IT-ISSUES
• Security of internet transactions
• Return of goods with which the customers are dissatisfied
• Software piracy
• Pirating of music, films, books
• Hacking – cyber crime – circumvents computer security
and breaks in to comp system.- To leak confid info.
• Creation & dissemination of harmful viruses / progrms -
2nd crime
• Infringement OF COPYRIGHT
• Placing defamatory statements
• INFORMATION ESPIONAGE -The practice of spying or of using spies,
typically by governments to obtain political and military information.
-SABOTAGE- Computer sabotage involves deliberate attacks intended
to disable computers or networks for the purpose of disrupting
commerce, education and recreation for personal gain, committing
espionage, or facilitating criminal conspiracies, such as drug and
human trafficking.
FINANCIAL: ISSUES
1) Fraud in Financial Statements
• Fictitious revenues
• Concealed liabilities and expenses
• Fraudulent asset valuations (typically, a fraudster
artificially increases assets accounts to strengthen
the company's statement of financial position and
its financial ratios)
• Improper or fraudulent disclosures or omissions
• Fraudulent timing differences
2) Window dressing (Methods of window dressing – Inflation of sales,
Inflation of assets, Suppression of purchases & costs, Suppression of
liabilities )
3) Churning (excessive transactions by brokers)
4) Insider trading (Insider trading is the buying or selling of a security by
someone who has access to material nonpublic information about the
security. It is illegal when the material information is still nonpublic)
5) Money Laundering
6) Scandal
7) Speculation: Speculation involves trading a financial instrument
involving high risk in expectation of significant returns. The aim is to
make maximum advantage from fluctuations in the market
Production: issues
• Product
• Flawed products
• Hazardous products
• Genetically modified products

• Process
• Effluents (Coca-Cola)
• Water and power (Coca-Cola)
HR: issues
1) Hiring and selection: should be based on Ability, character; not
referrals
• Unethical practices – discrimination on the basis of religion, gender, age,
nationality, credentials (eg: degree, certificates, citations; testing is more
ethical)
2) Hiring: discrimination on Gender, Age, Religion and Nationality
3) Sexual harassment: Issues of diversity might be exploited to inflict
physical, verbal, or emotional harassment
4) Employee privacy: exploitation of physical (CCTV) , social (assessing
actions in social gathering), psychological (expression of flight
attendants) and informational privacy (Doctor HIV tests)