Ethical Issues In Marketing Field

Ethical issues or concerns in marketing are majorly the problems that come up as a result of conflicts and lack of agreement on marketing issues. This is because, the partners involved have set aside a number of expectations on how the relationship of the business is suppose to take shape and how key transactions is to be conducted. According to the marketing field is a huge one, where monopoly cannot easily find space unless there are violations of ethical issues within the subject fields.

It is the code of ethics in business that acts as guiding policies to every individual or partner within the marketing arena. According to most of the academic articles and research in respect to the subject, what is clear is that, the field of marketing has for long time experienced resurgence with the immense use of internet services and other popularity of the social media. The main idea behind this purpose is on the ease of companies to connect directly with other liable customers. This has changed in the recent past, since a number of companies conduct their market research with no regard to ethical concerns but for their own personal gains (CARRIGAN, MARINOVA & SZMIGIN 2005). Companies end up bringing unfavorable competition and at some point leads to even infringement of consumers’ rights.

Most of the ethical issues have been noted to either violate the business ethics or contravenes the marketing field. The first ethical concern or issue is on the delivery channels. It is an issue because most of the business partners or operators have always opted for direct marketing which in most cases is very controversial especially when the approaches that are included are unsolicited. According to (Kimmel 2007) some of the common examples include television and telephonic commercials as well as mails that are direct.

Other than the already mentioned, other ethical concerns are also on the deceptive marketing policies that are not bounded by specific limit or to one market of target. This in most cases may go unseen if the public is not keen or even careful. There are a number of ways in which deceptive policies in marketing can be presented. One of the most common one is on the use of humor. The main purpose of the subject in the previous sentence is because; it offers a loop hole for escaping from various types of human constraints. This in a number of cases makes some advertisers to take advantage and offer advertising methods that are deceptive and misleading for a product that can either cause harm or even alleviate the constraint through the usage of humor.

This is another ethical concern that a number of business companies do violate and ends up looting huge sums of money from the consumers’ pockets. This is usually considered unethical and business operators have always been warned to desist from such acts or they face heavy penalties. There are various forms of unethical business practices that are normally related to this kind of practice. The first form includes big rigging. This is a type of fraud in the field of marketing where a commercial contract is given as a promise to one party, however, for the sake of imagery; other unrelated partners are also invited in the bid to offer their presence. The second form is of predatory pricing. A practice where a certain company or business operator intends to monopolize the marketing world, and in so doing offers its products at a negligible price and locks competitors out of the market door.

The last one is on two competing business companies coming into a consensus without regarding the concept of the consumers and they raise the prices of their respective commodities. This is mainly rampant with those companies that produce similar products and the entire consumers are depending on them to satisfy their needs. It is a type of marketing issue that has been greatly experienced in Australia and the Australian citizens have greatly felt its impact, which goes with no doubt, is negative and very unbearable.

This is also another ethical issue that a number of business companies has been using across the globe and easily accessing customers may playing with the psychology of everyone. In most cases, it considered as an anti- competitive process in accordance to (WINSTANLEY & WOODALL 1999), this is because it may not easily be sustained in the marketing field. This kind of ethical issue promises its customers payment or good services majorly for undertaking the enrollment of other people into the scheme. If any research is done pertaining the business dealings, it is realized that in real sense, it does not supply any investment that is real or even engaging into the selling of products to the general public. This kind of unethical business practice will always demand that the initial investor enrolls other people for a free cost to them who will again engage in the enrolment of other people to be paid by the company.

Nevertheless, with the rise of marketing content, advertisers and marketers who are considered as brand have found best opportunities that allow them to reach other people and engage their customers often. Although this has always been considered to be a score, to both parties, it has also been subjected to a number of marketing changes in the marketing field. It is these challenges that can also be referred to as dilemmas by some team of scholars (MCLEAN & YODER 2005).

They include issues like spamming. Spamming generally refers to the over promotion of messages that are unsolicited which in my view and that of many other intellect is seen as unethical going by the look in which the messages are normally disseminated or broadcasted. This is because of the cluttering up of opportunities for more useful information by the unwanted messages. The other ethical dilemma, is on distortions and dishonesty, this is usually experienced at the core of social media where the intentions are expected to be transparent with respect to communication. Untruthful or comments that may be termed as derogative can contribute to the jeopardy of the long term reputation of a company that has got a number of messages which are not controllable.

Two Companies in Australia who has had Issues Regarding the way they do their Business in reference to Four Australian Articles that are in cooperated in the Australian Newspaper

Australia as a whole has had issues of marketing ethics. Two companies of Australia were caught on the lime light on ethical concerns especially that of pricing as previously addressed. The subject companies were mainly dairy giants, that is, Murray Goulburn Company and Fonterra Company. They were debated by four media articles in the Australian newspaper to have played a very dangerous game of chicken by raising the price of milk higher than the required by the Australian Marketing policy. The articles were mainly, The Australian Conversation, The Australian Business Review, The Weekend Australian and The Australian Newsletter (Australia & Eggleston 2010). It is also said that the two companies ought to have even considered the existence of global dairy market volatility, a point that both the companies overlooked. This is supported by the link provided in respect to the academic articles, https://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=253986.

Both the companies tried their level best in convincing the general public by leveling allegations against each other but each one of them was found to be at fault for racing to the bottom. It is argued that although the companies are located in Australia, they are having members across the globe, for example, Fonterra Company is having most of its members in New Zealand and it is the largest dairy exporter in the world (Australia & Eggleston 2011). The two subject companies had a head to head competition for their own benefit or for the purpose of monopolizing the marketing field not realizing the damage that they were causing. They ended up affecting negatively the producers like the dairy farmers since purchase of dairy meals also went high when the price of milk shot up. The people who were largely affected were the consumers who at all cost had to look for ways of buying milk even if the price was unbearable. (Other than the in text citation made and the link provided in respect to the Australian Newspaper that contained four Australian articles as provided, the references can also be found in the referencing list in the last page).

The main aspect of marketing ethics in which the mentioned companies had issues, was on pricing. The subject media articles confirmed that both the companies played a major role in raising the price of milk without regarding the interest of other key players like the producers or manufacturers, consumers and even world marketing organizations. When the two subject companies raised the milk price although performing better, there was much uproar in the air. They were even blamed for disregarding the existence of the global dairy trade as mentioned in the previous paragraph. This shows that the step that both Murray Goulburn and Fonterra Company took was unethical.

Ethical issues in the marketing field have been common both in the recent past and even to date. This is due to lack of concern that business operators and companies or organizations have at the expense their own good as noted in the above detailed discussion. A number of issues addressed are not only common to companies in Australia but across the globe. Therefore, business companies should adopt guiding policies that will safeguard the business code of ethics to offer a fair ground of competition and even to other key players like consumers, producers and even manufacturers.

Australia., & Eggleston, A. (2010). Milking it for all it’s worth: Competition and pricing in the Australian dairy industry. Canberra: Senate Economics References Committee.

Australia., & Eggleston, A. (2011). The impacts of supermarket price decisions on the dairy industry: Second interim report. Canberra: Economics References Committee.

Carrigan, M., Marinova, S. T., & Szmigin, I. (2005). Ethics and international marketing: research background and challenges. Bradford, England, Emerald Group Pub. https://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=253986.

Kimmel, A. J. (2007). Ethical issues in behavioral research: Basic and applied perspectives. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Pub.

Mclean, D. J., & Yoder, D. G. (2005). Issues in recreation and leisure: ethical decision making. Champaign, Ill, Human Kinetics.

Winstanley, D., & Woodall, J. (1999). Ethical issues in contemporary human resource management. New York, St. Martin’s Press.