3 Ethical Issues in Marketing, and How to Resolve Them

I’ve been teaching marketing for over 20 years at both undergraduate and graduate levels, and currently teach at one of the largest universities in the United States. This has given me the opportunity to interact with a multitude of marketing executives over the years, from just about every industry that exists. During those interactions with industry professionals, we've often discussed ethical dilemmas in marketing. Here are three of the top ones that frequently become issues for companies both small and large.

(If you'd rather listen/watch instead, play the video below. Otherwise, keep reading below the video.)

Issue 1: Selling the product versus selling a solution.

Many marketers have been given the task of selling products that have been designed and/or produced with a particular target market in mind, but in order to sell more, those products are then marketed to an audience who does not want or need that product. Instead of taking the time to truly understand the needs and conditions of the new market, many marketers merely “push product” rather than find valued solutions. This results in unhappy customers, who in today’s world of social media complaining, end up hurting the brand by publicizing their negative experiences with what they were sold.

Issue 2: Telling the truth, but not the whole truth, and not “nothing but the truth.”

To motivate demand, many marketers often tell half-truths by leaving out key information to prospective buyers or by adding irrelevant information that might cause the buyers to view the truth in a different light, which biases their perceptions of the product offering. Granted, the entire truth may be difficult to portray, particularly for complicated product offerings, but ethical marketers will at least make the attempt to provide full disclosure when possible. The result of partial-truth communication is that customers end up feeling deceived while the marketers or salespeople will claim innocence, saying that they never outright told a lie. This results in a downward spiral of mistrust that will destroy both brand image and brand equity.

Issue 3: Blatant lying to the marketer’s own organization.

Marketing budgets are often fragile, first, due to the belief that they can be reduced without immediate negative effects on sales, and second, because many marketing expenditures are not clearly shown to be connected to sales volume, sales revenue, and profit margins. Although there are many marketing expenditures that are difficult (but not impossible!) to justify quantitatively (such as brand advertising, social media, and relationship building), informed and motivated marketers can indeed provide the true quantitative links between their marketing activities and how the organization benefits. However, because a great number of marketers do not understand how to make these connections, many of these marketers mislead top management into thinking that the organization’s marketing dollars are well spent, just so that they can retain their budgets (and their jobs) for the following year. The result? Mediocre performance at best, and potentially dismal performance at worst. Opportunities are lost; resources are wasted; valid feedback is nonexistent.

There are a number of other ethical issues in marketing, but these are three that are commonplace and that present significant challenges.

The solutions, however, are surprisingly simple. To solve the selling issue, train your teams to focus on finding valid solutions for their prospects, even if it means not making a sale or even if it means recommending a competing product. There’s little worse than destroying your brand’s reputation by pushing a product that doesn’t fit.

Solving the half-truth problem is as simple as just plain telling the truth as you would want it told to you.  Concentrate on communicating to your audiences rather than manipulating them. If you have a solid product and there’s a fit with audience needs, you’ll make sales. If there’s not a fit, then change the product or motivate your audience to consider changing their desires for what you offer.

As for the deceptive internal communications issue, the solution is potentially difficult, but it’s still simple. It involves learning -- learning how to measure performance and connect performance measures to marketing actions. This is where a strong understanding of marketing key performance indicators comes into play. This will take time and will be a challenge for many marketers who have avoided serious analytics over the years. But it will pay off by helping to make the connections between what you do as a marketer and how the organization truly benefits.

To solve most ethical issues in marketing, marketers need a combination of technical knowledge, a commitment to telling the truth, and a passion for finding solutions rather than just making the sale.

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So what are some ethical issues that you’ve encountered in your marketing adventures? Feel free to discuss them in the comments below.

Anthony

P.S. Join me over at YouTube (YouTube.com/AnthonyMiyazaki) for videos and interviews covering marketing strategy and tactics, brand development, effective communication, personal and professional branding, marketing yourself, marketing leadership, and whatever other relevant and related topics come this way.