Ethics in Marketing
When you are starting out in the marketing field, and specifically going to be working on integrated marketing plans, there is one consideration you must take into place, ethics. According to the American Marketing Association, “As marketers, we recognize that we not only serve our organizations but also act as stewards of society in creating, facilitating and executing the transactions that are part of the greater economy” (AMA.org, 2020). This implies that as a marketer, it is your responsibility to promote and advertise products in a way that is never harmful, misleading, or untruthful to consumers.
When working on an integrated marketing campaign, it is important to always keep the guidelines set by the AMA in mind. For example, you need to always foster trust by dealing fairly with customers, and always being honest, straightforward, transparent in our communication. This means that pricing must be accurate, advertisements must be truthful, communication needs to be transparent and upfront when dealing with consumers. You need to always have in mind that the goal is to foster trust with consumers, because this breeds loyalty. It is also imperative that you always meet the customer’s expectations that have been set from the campaign. Last but not least when setting ethical standards, you need to keep in mind to never negatively depict certain demographics.
Consequences
If these ethical practices are not put into place when working on an integrated marketing campaign, there are many things that occur. To start with, if customers are not satisfied and feel they were hoodwinked by your campaign, you could lose them as a customer forever. In the day and age of social media, one bad review on Twitter or Facebook can go viral, and really paint the company in a bad light. People are more prone to air their grievances with products or services online, so it is crucial that you are never making false claims, and you are transparent in your marketing to avoid this. The company could also lose money spent on the advertisement/campaign if it needs to be pulled due to it being seemed unethical. On a more serious note, if you make a false claim in an advertisement you could even be investigated by the Federal Trade Committee.
At the end of the day, consumers want to feel they can trust the company they are giving their money to. It is the marketers job to ensure that people are buying items that the truly do want/need, and that the claims of the product and service will match expectations. We live in a world where consumers have become more smart, and online reviews/ratings dictate whether someone will purchase or not, so our marketing needs to match this.
References:
Codes of Conduct: AMA Statement of Ethics. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ama.org/codes-of-conduct/
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