Answers For Ethical Marketers

With recent changes in technology, media, and the communication landscape, the journey to ethics has become more complicated than ever before. This book aims to answer ethical questions, from applying ethics and sound judgment through your organization and communication channels to taking your ethics and values into every media interview. With the understanding of how personal and professional ethics align, business leaders, managers, and students will maneuver their way around this new landscape showcasing their values in ethical conduct. This book is divided into eight important areas based on where and why a breakdown in ethical behavior is likely to occur, and delivers advice from experts on the frontlines of business communications who know what it means to face the inherent changes and challenges in this field. With more than 80 questions and answers focused on guiding marketing, PR and business professionals, readers will uncover situations where ethics are challenged, and their values will be tested. This straightforward Q&A guidebook is for professionals who realize ethics are a crucial part of decision-making in their communications and who want to maintain trust with the public and their positive brand reputations in business. Readers will receive answers to pressing ethical questions to help them apply best practice guidelines and good judgment in their own situations, based on the stories, theories, and practical instruction from the author’s 30 years of experience as well as the thought leaders featured in this book.

Social marketing is being adopted by a growing number of government and nonprofit organizations around the world because of its power to bring about important social changes. An array of commercial marketing concepts and techniques has been applied to problems ranging from child abuse to teen smoking to environmental neglect. However, in crafting these programs, agencies face complex ethical challenges. For example, is it acceptable to exaggerate risk and heighten fear if doing so saves more lives? What if improving the lives of one group has negative effects on another? How does a marketing campaign respect a group's culture while calling for fundamental change within it? In Ethics in Social Marketing, ten contributors draw on their professional experience and the literature of ethics to set forth a range of problems and offer frameworks for their resolution. They introduce philosophical rules and practical models to guide decision making, and they focus on such complex issues as unintended consequences, ethical marketing alliances, and professional ethical codes. The book not only introduces students to the special moral and ethical burdens of social marketing but also challenges practitioners to address difficult issues that are easily minimized or avoided.

Marketing, while essential to organisational success, is arguably one of the most controversial aspects of business management. Criticisms of marketing’s impact range from fostering materialism and unsustainable consumption patterns through to the use of deception, stifling of innovation and lowering of quality, to name but a few. Taking a holistic and international perspective, this book critically examines the ethical challenges marketing faces and explores strategies marketers can use to respond to those challenges. The book examines specific aspects of marketing activities, such as ethical considerations in relation to young consumers, potentially harmful products and criticism of the societal impact of medical, arts and tourism marketing activities. It then combines these with wider discussions of frameworks that enable marketers to respond to ethical challenges, supplemented by discussions of cross-cultural and international perspectives, consumer responses and ethical consumption movements as well as shifting historical perceptions of marketing ethics. The book is accompanied by a companion website including: PowerPoint slides and teaching notes per chapter, links to free SAGE journal articles and online videos selected per chapter by the authors, quizzes per chapter and links to further reading online.

Ethical approaches to marketing offers a dynamic and inspiring perspective on how powerful marketing can have a positive and ethical impact on society. It brings together a wealth of internationally acclaimed academics who share their thoughts on a broad range of ethical approaches to marketing. With the continued and unwavering criticism of marketing across the globe, with accusations of persuasion, exploitation and manipulation and more this book aims to open the minds of the reader to the constructive and progressive approaches of ethical marketers. It reframes the way we think about marketing and society offering a number of emotional and motivational topics written by world leading academics, bringing together the great minds of ethical academics in a profound and dynamic monograph. The range of scholars includes new and upcoming academics taking on the opportunity to publish their work alongside eminent scholars. Contributions support the notion that marketing is good for society and impacts on consumer wellbeing, lifestyle, communities and positive consumer behaviours. This book asks the reader to think differently, feel the change that is rapidly developing in marketing through the interconnections of personal ethical values which are becoming interdependent with professional marketing values. "As problems linked to health, the environment and social injustice mount during the 21st century, harnessing the power of marketing to help find and promote positive solutions is going to be crucial for all our futures. Billy Bob Thornton once claimed publicly that ‘Marketing is the Devil’, but this collection demonstrates the potential for marketing and marketers to make important contributions on the side of the angels." (Professor Ken Peattie)

With key terms and concepts related to marketing ethics presented in a short, easy-to-use format, this guide is an essential companion for marketing courses or as a reference for students and practitioners who would like to learn more about the basics of ethical marketing. The text is divided into four sections which contain important keywords that relate to those sections: Business Ethics, Ethics and the Marketing Mix, Ethics and the Promotional Mix, and Special Topics in Marketing Ethics. Each keyword entry is written by a scholar drawn from the fields of business and marketing ethics, and is a comprehensive essay on such crucial topics as ethical issues in pricing, green marketing, and deceptive advertising. Each essay includes a list of references and suggested readings for each article so that readers can find more information on those issues they are most interested in.

This book addresses the rising concept of 21st century societal marketing which entails that marketers should fulfill the needs of their target group in ways that enhance the well-being of a society as a whole. In the past, social responsibility and corporate ethics may not have been the key elements of corporate and business strategy. However, in the last decade the picture has changed dramatically. Consumers are more concerned about ethical issues and the effects of business activities on the environment and the society. The impact and importance of ethical consumerism is escalating. The consumers are more attentive and expect companies promote their ethical credentials in order to make them more accountable of their actions. This book also reveals how companies should realize that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not an illustration of corporate altruism but a source of opportunity, and competitive advantage. Finding and following social initiatives as a part of the key business model is proved to be one of the competitive strengths in many instances. This book covers different issues related to ethics, social responsibility and sustainability in marketing and presents different cases and applications from different countries. Together with the best practices, each case and research is expected to shed light on how to improve the role of marketing in helping to the development and well-being of the society.

In a series of articles specifically commissioned for this volume, some of today's most distinguished business ethicists survey the main areas of interest and concern in the field of business ethics. Sections of the book cover topics such as the often easy relation between business ethics and capitalism, the link between business ethics and ethical theory, how ethics applies to specific problems in the business world, the connection between business ethics and related academic disciplines, and the practice of business ethics in modern corporations. Includes extensive, accessible discussion of all of the main areas of interest and debate in business ethics Features all original contributions by distinguished authors in business ethics Includes an annotated table of contents, bibliographies of the relevant literature and a list of internet sources of material on business ethics Perfect, comprehensive book for use in business ethics courses