Ethical Issues in Marketing
Ethical issues in marketing
The importance of ethics in marketing is growing. Recognition and respect for ethics, covering a wide range of issues can be used as USP (unique selling point) for a company. Each society will have it own unwritten code of behavior. However view of matter will change over time. Due to this societal marketing concept has emerged which requires that marketer adhere to socially responsible and ethical practices in the marketing of their goods and products. Below is the definition of ethics.
Ethic: A principle of right of good conduct, or a body of such principle.
In the coming pages two companies have been taken into consideration in regards to whether their behavior is ethical towards their stake holders.
1. The Body Shop ( A cosmetic products producer and retailer) 2. Green Mountain coffee roasters ( a coffee retail company).
An August 1996 edition of Marketing Success briefly covered some issues of ethics which might be of relevance to marketers, using the 4Ps of the marketing mix as a framework. Below we discuss the response of the above mentioned two organizations to ethics in marketing.
| | |
|Body Shop |Green Mountain Coffee Roasters(GMCR) |
| |GMCR is one of the leader in specialty coffee industry, and has |
|The body Shop has successfully manufactured an image of being a |been recognized by Forbes Magazine for the past four years as one|
|caring company that is helping to protect the environment and |of the “200 Best Small Companies in America.” The company |
|indigenous people, and prevent the suffering of animals – whilst |contributes at least five percent of its pre-tax profit annually |
|selling ‘Natural Products’.
The importance of ethics in marketing is growing. Recognition and respect for ethics, covering a wide range of issues can be used as USP (unique selling point) for a company. Each society will have it own unwritten code of behavior. However view of matter will change over time. Due to this societal marketing concept has emerged which requires that marketer adhere to socially responsible and ethical practices in the marketing of their goods and products. Below is the definition of ethics.
Ethic: A principle of right of good conduct, or a body of such principle.
In the coming pages two companies have been taken into consideration in regards to whether their behavior is ethical towards their stake holders.
1. The Body Shop ( A cosmetic products producer and retailer) 2. Green Mountain coffee roasters ( a coffee retail company).
An August 1996 edition of Marketing Success briefly covered some issues of ethics which might be of relevance to marketers, using the 4Ps of the marketing mix as a framework. Below we discuss the response of the above mentioned two organizations to ethics in marketing.
| | |
|Body Shop |Green Mountain Coffee Roasters(GMCR) |
| |GMCR is one of the leader in specialty coffee industry, and has |
|The body Shop has successfully manufactured an image of being a |been recognized by Forbes Magazine for the past four years as one|
|caring company that is helping to protect the environment and |of the “200 Best Small Companies in America.” The company |
|indigenous people, and prevent the suffering of animals – whilst |contributes at least five percent of its pre-tax profit annually |
|selling ‘Natural Products’.