Every breath you take: adding ethics to the marketing mix

In 1983, The Police released the Grammy award winning song Every Breath You Take, with the classic verse: Every breath you take/Every move you make/Every bond you break/ Every step you take/I’ll be watching you.

Nearly 30 years on, with the explosion of the internet and social media, these words couldn’t be more true: online has created a massive doubleedged sword for the marketer.

For organisations that understand today’s ethical standards and try to ‘do the right thing’, this heightened transparency can rightly act to improve brand equity.

For those that don’t, every move they make increases the risk that their brands will be proverbially tried, judged, and sentenced to death in a very public arena.

Creating a framework for ethical thinking

So how can we ensure that the ethical ramifications of everything we do are considered deeply, that nothing falls through the cracks, and that we ‘do the right thing’?

One simple way could be to start formalising the issue in our strategic planning process and making ‘ethical considerations’ a sub-head of the ‘Ps’ in our marketing plans.

At least once this simple step has been put in place, a signal is raised to start explicitly, proactively and seriously, thinking about this important aspect.

First things first

1. Being legal does not mean being ethical, and being ethical does not mean being legal.
2. Making the claim “it’s a business decision” does not give someone ethical immunity.
3. While consequences can be important, some things can be deemed as unethical simply based on the motivation or act itself. For example, if someone lies but no-one believes them, whilst no harm is done, the act of lying could still be deemed by many to be unethical.
4. Doing nothing (an omission), when one could or should have done something, can be deemed just as unethical as doing something (an act). With these basic concepts in mind, let’s look at how some ethical considerations could be considered under the classic four ‘Ps’ of product, price, place and promotion.

Product

Most marketers develop or market products suited to defined market segments, as this (along with appropriate targeting and positioning) should help maximise sales and brand equity. In doing this, however, some very broad questions can be asked.

For example:

• Does this product really align with the company’s explicit value set?
• Does this product help fulfil – or does it undermine – the company’s vision or mission statement?

If the answer is no to either of these, one could rightly say the company has misled its shareholders, its employees, the public, and all other relevant stakeholders.

Similarly, is the packaging appropriate? Will it be deceptive by design or default to its target segment, and will it be appropriate for others who could be exposed to it?

Are the warranties, customer service or customer care, either promised or inferred, not only clear, but really deliverable?

Price

Most marketers will consider the best pricing model to be one that boosts sales and profit but, depending on the industry and segment, the price set can also have significant ethical implications beyond the company.

A pricing model designed to increase profits, however, excludes consumers with low economic means, and may appear unfair when the product or service is not just desirable, but a necessity of life.

This type of issue is no more clearly demonstrated than in the pharmaceutical industry, where certain life-saving drugs may be priced at a level that only the affluent can afford – in effect creating a form of economic discrimination with life-anddeath health consequences.

Another example would be the pricing of utilities (eg water, gas, electricity).

Place

The issue of where a product can be purchased along the supply chain may seem innocuous at first, but it can also pose significant ethical ramifications.

If a product is made too easily accessible, for example products of addiction and harm (such as tobacco, alcohol and internet gambling), the consequences can be negative.

Similarly, so can making a product available to market segments where a high probability exists that it may be used incorrectly or inappropriately.

Some may remember the famous case in Africa, where a multinational corporation made infant formula available to impoverished breastfeeding mothers. As a result, due to the mothers’ financial constraints, limited access to fresh water, or both, the milk formula ended up being over-diluted (in an attempt to make it go further) or mixed with contaminated water – the end result being significant malnourishment and sickness.

Conversely, not making a product available can raise ethical questions. For example, when an agricultural company makes one type of pest- or drought-resistant crop available to one country, but not to another, particularly if the latter is a third-world country with limited options.

Finally, withdrawing or deleting a product or service can also have far-reaching impacts, especially if this goes beyond the understood or expected product life-cycle and support.

Promotion

When it comes to promotion, it’s important to differentiate between ‘bad taste’ and ‘unethical’, as this often gets confused in the media and many online discussions.

Bad taste can typically be described as something unpleasant, inappropriate, or something that defies our cultural norms.

Unethical, however, denotes something that breaks the rules of the game, or has negative or unacceptable consequences. Making a false promise outside the acceptable promotional practice of ‘puffery’, or promoting a product or service that ends up causing physical, emotional, economic or social harm, can be said to be unethical.

Examples include promoting how fast a car can go, when clearly speed limits exist; forms of beauty advertising that set impossible standards and expectations, thereby impacting self-esteem; and offering finance to those who clearly cannot afford it.

The advertising component of the promotional mix gains the lion’s share of popular culture’s attention, and it probably doesn’t require much more comment here. But there are many other aspects of the promotional mix that can also have significant ethical repercussions.

For example, whom you promote to, is important. Marketing to the vulnerable may be deemed unethical as, for a variety of reasons, they may not have the ability to appropriately evaluate the offering.

And even if you decide there are no ethical concerns around who you promote to, there is still the question of how much information we should provide. When is it unethical to disclose too little information, or too much?

CONCLUSION

The powers and abilities of effective marketers to impact and influence the world create unique responsibilities and considerations. Whether one feels the need to ‘do the right thing’ as it’s good for our brands (and business), or simply because ‘doing the right thing is the right thing to do’, as Sting poignantly pointed out, we know that our customers are watching us, and will judge us accordingly.

In a pluralistic world, where conflicts of interest will always arise and trade-offs need to be made, there is no simple or single way to always determine exactly what the ‘right thing to do’ is. However, just stopping and thinking about it is surely a great start.

Given that many of us use the marketing mix as a framework for developing our marketing strategies, perhaps just adding to each of the Ps, a section on ethical considerations, would be a simple way to help ensure that we, and the organisations we associate with, do ‘the right thing’.

The availability and price of pharmaceuticals can be an ethical issue

This article featured in Market Leader, July 2012.

Douglas Gimesy is an ethicistand principal of Australian communication firm The Framing Effect

[email protected]