A634.5.4.RB
Is
Marketing Evil?
When
I was a recruiter in the Army, marketing was a great part of my job. Along with the Army’s National marketing
campaign, each recruiter is a walking, talking Ad Campaign. Unfortunately, due to the autonomy of the
recruiters, some of the “marketing” was tailored to the amount of pressure the
recruiter was under at the time.
According
to Dr. Marty Nemko (2017), “Marketers use many psychological ploys to make you
buy what you shouldn’t.” Nemko also goes
on to say, “Yes, sometimes, marketing is a worthy activity. For example,
marketing people can help a company develop a more useful product. Also,
marketing can help potential customers learn about a new product that's
worth considering.
But
more often, marketing attempts to manipulate you into spending on something
that, if you considered all the relevant factors, you wouldn't spend on.”
I
will have to agree with Nemko. It
doesn’t help that I am an impulse buyer.
I am drawn to attractive packaging and labeling. Also, if something is a novelty, I may
potentially purchase it. Most of these
things that I would not have ordinarily purchased. As a matter of fact, a few years ago I made
an impulse purchase of a Chihuahua because of how they had they kennels
staged. These are just some of the
tricks of marketing.
While
attending Touro University International, I wrote a general assignment on this
exact topic. Other marketing ploys are
“Loss-Leader Pricing” (think four gas stations at a four way intersection),
“Staging” and “Impulse Racks” (think Walmart), “Demonstrators” (think Sam’s
Club), and “Business Intelligence” (remember the last time you did a web search
for a product and then went to another website and saw the exact thing you were
searching for in an Ad Banner?). Because
of demonstrator at Sam’s Club I actually bought two bamboo pillow and I hate
them.
According
to Dr. Linda Ferrell, Marketing ethics define acceptable conduct in the
marketplace (Ferrell, n.d.). She also
states (Ferrell, n.d., pg. ETH-2), “There are many reasons to understand and
develop the most effective approaches to manage marketing ethics. All organizations face significant threats
from ethical misconduct and illegal behavior from employees and managers on a
daily basis. Well-meaning marketers
often devise schemes that appear legal but are so ethically flawed that they
result in scandals and legal entanglements.”
Dr.
Ferrell (Ferrell, n.d., pg. ETH-10) concludes, “One lesson that every marketing
student should understand is that most companies will engage in some form of
misconduct. As Warren Buffet has stated,
‘we just hope it’s small and that we find it quickly.’ Because marketers engage in behaviors
impacting many varied stakeholders, their potential to do harm and opportunity
to have a very positive impact is great.”
With all
of this said:
1. Do you feel ethical guidelines make a difference to
marketers? Corporate guidelines should
be set. However, sometimes the
individual’s view of ethics run afoul.
Regardless, ethical guidelines do make a difference to marketers. Having guidelines in place may not totally
eradicate wrong doing but it certainly will slow it down. Damage control is more manageable and it is easier
to pinpoint what was done wrong.
2. How can companies balance the need to win with being ethical? As earlier stated, when I was an Army Recruiter, I witnessed unethical behavior often. The pressure to fulfill a “quota” would cause some recruiters to either walk the thin gray line or step directly into the black to “win”. The same goes for companies. Their pressure comes from “the bottom line”, pleasing the C-Suite, and stockholders. To balance the need to win with being ethical, a company must have stringent guidelines with firm consequences for violating them, hire ethical employees, provide a quality service or superior product, and monitor, monitor, monitor. Most of this is pretty easy to accomplish. However, how does a company hire quality people? And what is an ethical employee? According to Mark S. Putnam (Putnam, 2006), “an ethically balanced person has values, perspective, responsibility, and character.” I think that the most import of these is values and character. According to Putnam, “Values are the fundamental principles or rules when lived by make you "ethical" or not. You must have deeply-held core values that show themselves visibly in the everyday moral decisions you make.” Values can be ascertained by the interviewer asking pointed questions. Putnam also states about character, “There must be a genuine self-awareness of who you are at your very core. What do you believe is right or wrong? This is the real you behind the façades and outward appearances. Your character should not change with the circumstance but be a constant moral anchor.” One can see the character of an individual by his or her actions and deeds.
3. Is it ethical to track your buying habits or web visits to target you for marketing purposes? I see nothing wrong with it but some people are irritated by it. It known as Business Intelligent (BI). According to Margaret Rouse (Rouse, 2005 – 2017), “Business intelligence (BI) is a technology-driven process for analyzing data and presenting actionable information to help corporate executives, business managers and other end users make more informed business decisions. BI encompasses a wide variety of tools, applications and methodologies that enable organizations to collect data from internal systems and external sources, prepare it for analysis, develop and run queries against the data, and create reports, dashboards and data visualizations to make the analytical results available to corporate decision makers as well as operational workers.” BI monitors the web pages that are visited, the products that have been clicked on, and more. I say, just ignore the ad banners that will follow you. It would be a good idea for an opt-out, however.
4. As a leader, how will you manage the ethical aspects of your marketing efforts? I feel that I am a very ethical person. In secondary education, there isn’t much need for marketing efforts. If I ever go back into the public or private sector, I will definitely you the practices that I described in number two above.
References
Nemko,
M. (2017, January 17). Marketing is Evil. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-do-life/201701/marketing-is-evil
Ferrell,
L. (n.d.). Marketing ethics. Retrieved
from http://college.cengage.com/business/modules/marktngethics.pdf
Putnam,
M. S. (2006). Ethical balance. Retrieved from http://www.globalethicsuniversity.com/articles/ethicalbalance.htm
Rouse,
M. (2005 – 2017). Business intelligence (BI). Retrieved from http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/definition/business-intelligence
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