Chapter 7: ETHICS AND MARKETING

The heart of a business success depends on its marketing. Most aspects of a business
rely on successful marketing (advertising, public relations, promotions and sales).
Marketing is a method by which a product or service is presented and promoted to
possible customers. Without marketing, a business may offer the best products or
services in an industry, but none of the possible customers will know about it. Without
marketing, sales may dive and companies may have to close.

Ethical marketing is more of a philosophy that informs all marketing efforts rather than a
marketing strategy. It pursues to promote honesty, fairness, and responsibility in all
advertising ventures. Ethical marketing is a general set of guidelines to assist
organizations as they evaluate new marketing strategies. Unethical advertising is
usually just as effective as it is unethical and because unethical behavior is not
necessarily against the law, there are many organizations that make use of unethical
advertising to boost competitive advantage. Organizations can use ethical marketing as
a way to establish trust among their customers by living up to the claims made in its
advertising. It can make the customer feel like the company is invested in the quality of
the products and the value they provide consumers. It is futile to claim that any
organization is completely ethical or unethical. Ethics exists in a gray area with many
fine lines and shifting boundaries. Many organizations operate ethically in one aspect of
their advertising and unethically in another.

Marketing: An Ethical Framework

This framework pinpoints rights, responsibilities, duties and obligations, causes and
consequences. When these guidelines are distinguished, the decision-maker uses the
framework to adequately study the circumstance and come at the decision that best
reflects his personal and professional value structure.

This simple situation in which two participants come together and openly agree to an
exchange appears ethically legitimate. The rights-based ethical tradition would deem it
as maintaining respect for individuals by treating them as autonomous agents able to
pursue their own ends. This tradition infers that each individual will remain by
fundamental principles. The utilitarian ethical tradition would take the two participants’
agreement as proof that both are better off than they were before the exchange and
accordingly conclude that general happiness has been raised by any exchange openly
entered into.

This assessment is only assumed because, similar to all agreements, specific

conditions must be met before the conclusion that autonomy has been respected and
mutual benefit has been achieved. Therefore, for instance, one would need to confirm
that the agreement was produced from an informed and voluntary consent, and that
there was no fraud, deception, or coercion involved. When these conditions are
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infringed, autonomy is not respected, and mutual benefit is not achieved. In addition,
even when these given conditions are met, other values may supersede the freedom of
individuals to contract for mutually beneficial purposes. For instance, the freedom of
drug dealers to seek mutually agreeable ends is superseded by society’s concern to
maintain law and order.

In general, it will be advantageous to keep three matters in mind when approaching any
ethical issue in marketing: First, the rights-based ethical tradition would ask to what
degree the parties are respected as free and autonomous agents instead of being
treated merely as means to the end of making a sale. Second, the utilitarian tradition
would want to know the degree to which the deal provided concrete benefits rather than
apparent benefits. Third, every ethical tradition would also want to know what other
values might be at risk in the deal.

Consider these three concerns: the degree to which individuals freely participate in an
exchange; the benefits and costs of each exchange; and other values that are affected
by the exchange.

It is quite difficult to ascertain if a person is being treated with respect in marketing

situations. As a first estimate one might propose two conditions: One, the person must
freely agree to the transaction. Definitely transactions done under force are not
voluntary; therefore are unethical. But one must keep in mind that there are many
degrees of voluntariness. For instance, the more consumers need a product, the less
free they are to choose and therefore the more protection they deserve within the
marketplace. Take into account the use of the Windows operating system by the
majority of computer users. How voluntary is the decision to use Windows? Also, bear
in mind the anxiety and stress that a lot of customers go through when purchasing a
car. When a car dealer takes advantage of that anxiety to pitch extended warranty
insurance, it is not clear that the customer has made a totally voluntary decision. More
telling cases of price cheating, price-fixing, and monopolistic pricing clearly raise the
concern of freedom in marketing. Practices focused on vulnerable populations like
children and the elderly also raise questions of voluntariness. So, a fair analysis of
marketing ethics proposes the challenge to be sensitive to the many ways in which
consumer choice can be less than fully voluntary.

Two, the consent has to be not only voluntary, but also informed. Informed consent is
very crucial in the medical ethics field because patients are at an informational
disadvantage when communicating with medical professionals. Disadvantages
resembling this can happen in marketing situations. Complete and total deception and
fraud inarguably breach this condition and are unethical. A customer's consent to buy a
product is not informed if he is being misled or deceived about the product. But there
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can also be many more different cases of deception and misleading marketing
practices.

The second ethical matter points to the supposed benefits attained through market
exchanges. Economics textbooks usually presume that consumers benefit whenever
they make a transaction in the market but this assumption will not hold under close
review. Many purchases do not result in actual benefit. For instance, impulse buying,
and the marketing techniques used to promote said behavior, cannot be excused by
appeal to satisfying consumer interests. The continuous rise of individual bankruptcies
suggests that consumers cannot purchase happiness. Studies supply evidence that
implies that more consumption can lead to unhappiness, a condition some call
"affluenza.” Thus, if mere consumer satisfaction is not a definitive measure of the
benefits of market transactions, one should always ask about the ends of marketing.
What goods are achieved by successfully marketing this product or service? How and in
what ways are individuals and society benefited from the product?

Both participants in the marketing transaction are also not benefited in circumstances in
which one party is injured by the product. Unsafe products do not promote the utilitarian
aim of maximizing collective happiness. It would also not be beneficial for the
consumers if the yearnings that they look for to satisfy in the market are somehow
manipulated by the seller.

The third ethical matter is regarding values aside from those served by the exchange
itself. Basic social values such as fairness, justice, health, and safety are some of the
values that can be compromised by some marketing practices. For instance, a bank that
presents lower mortgage rates in opulent neighborhoods than it does in hard up
neighborhoods may be concerned only in transactions that are mutually beneficial since
they do not sell mortgages in the poorer neighborhoods. Such contracts would infringe
important social norms of equal treatment and fairness.

There may be a very strong demand for things such as women or children or particular
body parts of endangered species. But just because there are people interested in
buying and selling these things does not make the exchange ethically legitimate. A
sufficient ethical study of marketing should answer the questions: “Who are those
affected by the transaction?” and, “What social goods are promoted, and which are
threatened, by marketing this product?”

It is also important to note the true costs of production. A decent ethical study of
marketing must take into account externalities; those costs that are not included in the
transaction between buyer and seller. Externalities prove that even when both
participants to the transaction receive actual benefits from the exchange, other
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participants external to the exchange might be negatively affected. One keeps in mind
the environmental or health impact of marketing products like SUVs, pesticides, and
tobacco as examples in which a model of individual consumer transaction would ignore
important social costs. With these general matters, a closer analysis of a number of
major aspects of marketing ethics will follow.

Responsibility for Products: Safety and Liability

The blanket classification of business’ responsibility for the products and services it sells
contains a wide range of topics. Few matters have received as much examination in
law, politics, and ethics as has the responsibility of business for the harms caused by its
products. Business has an ethical responsibility to design, manufacture, and promote its
products in ways that prevent causing detriment to consumers.

It was mentioned in a previous chapter that to be responsible is to be identified as the

cause of something. Given this definition, one may say that Super Typhoon Yolanda
was responsible for millions of pesos in property damages in Visayas and other
surrounding areas. In another sense, responsibility entails accountability. This is
apparent when one asks who will be responsible for the damages caused by Yolanda. A
third sense of responsibility, related to but different from the sense of accountability,
entails assigning fault or liability for something.

The typhoon example shows how these three meanings can be differentiated. Yolanda
was responsible for (caused) the damage, but cannot be held responsible (accountable
for paying for the damages), nor can it be faulted for it. In another example, in a car
crash, a careless driver would be pinpointed as the cause of the accident and therefore
be held accountable because he was at fault.

Law and ethics depend on a similar framework when studying situations in which
business products or services cause harm. The core of the deliberation of business’
responsibility for product safety is on assigning liability (fault) for injuries brought about
by unsafe products. The legal dogma of strict liability is ethically contentious because
businesses are held accountable for paying damages whether or not it was at fault. In a
strict liability case the business is liable for any harm that results from the use of its
product or service no matter how careful the business is.

Contractual Standards for Product Safety

The literal translation of caveat emptor is, “let the buyer beware.” In business it means
to allow the potential buyer who is considering the procurement of an item to check the
item, and then allow him to decide the terms on which he is agreeable to buy or decline
the item. The idea that there is something that is at least a little improper or unethical
about the concept of caveat emptor is based on the illogical belief that its application
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absolves the seller from his contractual obligations to the buyer, which is a distortion of
the expression. The phrase is simply an effort to illustrate the broader concept of
freedom of contract as it applies to the seller-buyer relationship. The principle does not
have anything to do with the liability of the seller for the promises made regarding the
product he is selling. The seller is liable for his express promises and guarantees, and
in some situations, that liability is expanded to additional promises and guarantees that
may logically be implied from the nature of the specific transaction. Exactly what
promises or guarantees will be implied relies on the intention of the parties as exposed
by the details encircling the transaction.

Where the circumstances substantiate the implication, the implication will be made.
Once it is made, the implied promises are given equal legal effect as the express
promises. The main distinction in the two types of promises is a difference in the
evidence by which they are proved. But once they are proved, they are both considered
as promises actually made, and both are evenly enforceable against the seller.

If law will hold business liable for implicit promises, an intelligent business will try to limit
its liability by clearly disowning any promise or warranty. Because of this, many
businesses will serve a disclaimer of liability, or present an expressed and limited
warranty. Most courts will not let a business to fully disclaim the implied warranty of
merchantability.

Tort Standards for Product Safety

Making use of an implied warranty resolved one set of issues with the contract law
approach to product liability. Buyers need not have sophisticated contracts to guard
themselves from all possible detriments that goods may cause. There is a second
problem, however. If business is held liable solely for promises made during the
transaction, then as the buyer gets farther from the producer by layers of suppliers and
retailers, there may be no relationship at all between the buyer who gets injured and the
ultimate producer who was at fault.

Torts is a term that is usually used in the field of law that is known by lay people as
negligence. It presents buyers an alternative way to hold sellers responsible for the
products they produce. The difference between contract law and tort law also focuses
on two ways to comprehend ethical duties. In a contract model, the mere duties that a
person owes are those that have been explicitly promised to another party. Otherwise,
that person owes nothing to anyone.

Ethically, tort law maintains that people owe others certain general duties, even if it has
not been clearly and voluntarily assumed. For example, a general duty not to put others
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at unnecessary and avoidable risk may be owed. So, even if one never declared or
promised people that he will drive carefully, he has an ethical duty to do so.

Negligence is a principal factor of tort law. It concerns a kind of ethical neglect,

particularly neglecting one’s duty to practice reasonable care not to harm others. A lot of
the ethical and legal issues that manufacturers’ responsibility for products can be taken
as the bid to indicate what will be considered as negligence in their design, production,
and sale. What are the duties producers owe to their consumers?

One can think of possible answers to this question as falling along a continuum. On one
substitute “end” for “extreme” is the social contract answer: Producers owe only those
things promised to consumers in the sales agreement. At the other end is something
closer to strict liability: Producers owe compensation to consumers for any harm caused
by their products. In between these extremes is a range of answers that vary with
different interpretations of negligence. We have already suggested why the strict
contract approach is incomplete. In the next section we shall examine the pros and cons
of strict product liability. The remainder of this section will examine the important
concept of negligence.1

Negligence can be distinguished as a failure to practice reasonable care or ordinary

caution that causes another to be harmed. Negligence breaks down two essential
ethical laws in many ways: “ought implies can” (one cannot reasonably oblige someone
to do what he cannot do) and “one ought not harm others.” One commits an ethical fault
when he causes injury to others in manners that he can reasonably be expected to have
avoided. Negligence involves both actions of commission and omission. One is
considered to be negligent by doing something that one should not do or by failing to do
something that one should have done. Negligence includes the capacity to anticipate
the consequences of one’s actions but not being able to do anything to evade the
probable detrimental consequences.

However, the gauges of foreseeability raise gripping questions. One gauge would hold
an individual liable only for those harms he actually anticipated happening (actual
foreseeability). So for instance, one would be negligent if, one concludes, after a series
of tests, that a gas tank positioned behind the rear axle could be perforated and may
explode during crashes but still makes the car available to the market.

This gauge of actual foreseeability is too limited. If an individual thinks that detriments
will probably result from his actions but goes along with it anyway, he has committed a
grave offense and deserves punishment. Such an event appears to be more similar to
1
Hartman, Laura P., Des Jardins, Joseph, & MacDonald, Chris. Business Ethics: Decision-making for Personal
Integrity & Social Responsibility (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill, Irwin.
Chapter 7: ETHICS AND MARKETING
recklessness or intentional harm rather than negligence. But this gauge would also
allude that inconsiderate people cannot be negligent, since one eludes liability by not
considering the consequences of his actions. With this concept of negligence, it is
important to encourage people to be thoughtful and considerate and hold them liable
when they are not.

A preferable gauge would compel consumers to evade detriments that they should have
considered if they had been reasonable. People are expected to act reasonably and are
held liable when they are not. Also, when one notices the probability of harm, the
reasonable person expectation is increased. The issue of foreseeability comes up when
a product might be misused.

Strict Product Liability

There are circumstances in which buyers can be harmed by a product in which no
negligence was involved. In circumstances such as these, where no one was at fault,
the question of accountability is raised. Who ought to pay for damages when buyers are
harmed by goods and no one is at fault? The legal doctrine of strict product liability
holds manufacturers accountable in such cases.

One classic strict product liability case involved the synthetic estrogen hormone
diethylstilbestrol (DES). In the late 1940s, DES was approved for use in the prevention
of miscarriages and was widely prescribed for problem pregnancies until the early
1970s. The drug had been widely tested in clinical trials and proved quite successful in
reducing the number of miscarriages. However, in the early 1970s a connection was
discovered between the use of DES during pregnancy and certain forms of vaginal
cancer in the female children of women who used the drug. These cancers did not
typically appear until more than a decade after the drug was used. In 1972 the FDA
prohibited all marketing of the drug for use during pregnancy.2

Responsibility for Products: Advertising and Sales

Advertising ethics has garnered a lot of notice under the umbrella of business ethics,
aside from the issue of product safety. The aim of marketing is the sale of the product
and a big factor of marketing is sales promotion - trying to sway the consumer to
complete a transaction. Target marketing, finding out which audience is most likely to
buy, and marketing research, which audience is mostly likely to be persuaded by
product promotion are two essential elements of product placement.

There are ethically good and bad ways for swaying consumers to buy a product. Some
examples of ethically acceptable means of influencing consumers are persuading,
2
Hartman, Laura P., Des Jardins, Joseph, & MacDonald, Chris. Business Ethics: Decision-making for Personal
Integrity & Social Responsibility (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill, Irwin.
Chapter 7: ETHICS AND MARKETING
asking, informing, and advising. Unethical ways of influencing include threats, coercion,
deception, manipulation, and lying. It is the sad truth that sales and advertising practices
often involve deluding or manipulative manners of influence. There are times when a
particular manner of advertising is directed at specific audiences that are most likely to
be affected by manipulation or deception.

Manipulation is defined as to guide or direct someone's behavior. It does not require

being in complete control of something; it implies a process of subtle direction or
management. Manipulation suggests operating covertly; directing a person's behavior
without their consent or conscious understanding. Because of this, manipulation differs
from persuasion and other kinds of reasonable influence. One manner of manipulating
someone is through deception - the act or statement intended to make people believe
something that is not true. It is possible to manipulate someone without deception, like
how a professor might manipulate his students into studying by implying that there may
be a quiz during the next class). This manner suggests that the more one knows about
another's psychology (motivations, interests, desires, beliefs, dispositions, etc.) the
better able one will be to manipulate another's behavior.

Ethical Issues in Advertising

The overall ethical defense of advertising mirrors both the utilitarian and Kantian ethical
standards. Advertising gives data for market exchanges that also adds to market
efficiency and to universal happiness. Advertising data also contributes to the
information needed for autonomous individuals to make informed decisions. This is
assuming that the information is authentic and reliable.

Manipulation would be objected strongly by the principle-based tradition in ethics. To

manipulate someone is to treat them as a means to an end; as a tool to be used instead
of as an autonomous individual in his right. Manipulation is an explicit display of
disrespect for people since it ignores others' rational decision-making. Even
unsuccessful manipulations are guilty of this ethical wrong since the evil is in the
intention to use another as a means.

As in the utilitarian tradition, it offers a more conditional review of manipulation

depending on the consequences. There are situations where someone is manipulated
for their own good - paternalistic manipulation - but even in cases like these, unforeseen
harms can happen. Manipulation usually destroys trust and respect between individuals.
It can destroy one’s self-confidence and hamper the development of responsible choice
of those individuals who are manipulated. Utilitarians would tend to believe that
manipulation decreases overall happiness since it is mostly done at the expense of the
manipulated.
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A blatant form of manipulation is seen in situations where vulnerable people are
targeted for abuse. Some examples are: cigarette advertising targeting children and the
elderly aimed at goods and services like insurance, casinos and gambling, nursing
homes, and funerals.

Marketing research aims to learn more about how potential customers think but not all
psychological classifications are similar. Some are more rational and logical than others.
Targeting the considered and rational desires of consumers is one thing; targeting their
fears, anxiety, and whims is another.

Marketing Ethics and Consumer Autonomy

Supporters of advertising assert that in general, advertising contributes much to the
economy even though there are a number of cases of deceptive practices. The majority
of advertisements gives buyers information that contributes to an efficient function of
economic markets. The supporters believe that market forces will eventually filter out
deceptive advertisements and practices. They say that the most effective response to a
deceptive ad is a competitor’s ad calling attention to the deception.

A question as important as what advertising does for people is what advertising and
marketing do to people. There are several benefits consumers can get from the
marketing of products such as learning about products they may need or want,
receiving information that helps them make wise choices, and sometimes getting
entertained. Aside from these, some say that marketing aids shape culture and the
individuals who develop and are socialized within that culture. Marketing can have direct
and indirect influence on the kind of person an individual becomes. How it does that,
and the kind of person one becomes as a result, is of fundamental ethical importance.
Critics of such claims either deny that marketing can have such influence or maintain
that marketing only imitates the culture of which it is a part.

The initial proposal in this debate was offered by economist John Kenneth Galbraith in
his 1958 book, The Affluent Society. Galbraith claimed that advertising and marketing
were creating the very consumer demand that production then aimed to satisfy. Dubbed
the “dependence effect,” this assertion held that consumer demand depended upon
what producers had to sell. This fact had three major and unwelcome implications. First,
by creating wants, advertising was standing the “law” of supply and demand on its head.
Rather than supply being a function of demand, demand turns out to be a function of
supply. Second, advertising and marketing tend to create irrational and trivial consumer
wants and this distorts the entire economy. The “affluent” society of consumer products
and creature comforts is in many ways worse off than so-called undeveloped
economies because resources devoted to contrived, private consumer goods are
therefore denied to more important public goods and consumer needs. Taxpayers deny
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school districts small tax increases to provide essential funding while parents drop their
children off at school in $40,000 SUVs. A society that cannot guarantee vaccinations
and minimal health care to poor children spends millions annually for cosmetic surgery
to keep its youthful appearance. Finally, by creating consumer wants, advertising and
other marketing practices violate consumer autonomy. Consumers who consider
themselves free because they are able to purchase what they want are not in fact free if
those wants are created by marketing. In short, consumers are being manipulated by
advertising. Ethically, the crucial point is the assertion that advertising violates
consumer autonomy. The law of supply and demand is reversed, and the economy of
the affluent society is contrived and distorted, only if consumer autonomy can be
violated, and consumers manipulated, by advertising’s ability to create wants. But can
advertising violate consumer autonomy and, if it can, does this occur? Consider the
annual investment in this effort. Given this investment, what does advertising do to
people and to society? An initial thesis in this debate claims that advertising controls
consumer behavior. Autonomy involves making reasoned and voluntary choices, and
the claim that advertising violates autonomy might mean that advertising controls
consumer choice. Psychological behaviorists and critics of subliminal advertising, for
example, would claim that advertising can control consumer behavior in this way. But
this seems to be an empirical claim and the evidence suggests that it is false. For
example, some studies show that more than half of all new products introduced in the
market fail, a fact that should not be true if consumer behavior could be controlled by
marketing. Consumers certainly don’t seem controlled by advertising in any obvious
sense of that word. But consumer autonomy might be violated in a more subtle way.
Rather than controlling behavior, perhaps advertising creates the wants and desires on
the basis of which consumers act. The focus here becomes the concept of autonomous
desires rather than autonomous behavior. This is much closer to the original assertion
by Galbraith and other critics of advertising. Consumer autonomy is violated by
advertising’s ability to create non-autonomous desires.3

To understand how desires might be non-autonomous, ponder on the various reasons

people buy the products they buy and consume the products they do, and why people
go shopping. After the basic needs are fulfilled, there is a real question of why people
consume the way they do. People purchase different things for different reasons: for
status, to feel good, because it is the trend, to fit in, etc. The intriguing ethical question
here is where these desires came from, and how much marketing has influenced these
non-necessity purchases.

3
Hartman, Laura P., Des Jardins, Joseph, & MacDonald, Chris. Business Ethics: Decision-making for Personal
Integrity & Social Responsibility (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill, Irwin.
Chapter 7: ETHICS AND MARKETING
Marketing to Vulnerable Populations
A traditional perspective in marketing ethics is that it is ethically taboo to market goods
to specially vulnerable populations in ways that take advantage of their vulnerabilities.
Some marketing practices may target customers who are probably vulnerable and
uneducated as buyers. For instance, marketing that targets children seeks to sell
products to buyers who are incapable to make mindful and informed consumer
decisions. Other marketing practices may aim the populations that are vulnerable in the
general sense like when an insurance company advertises flood protection insurance to
residents living in an area more susceptible to flooding. Are these types of targeting
ethically appropriate?

Initially, one would say that the marketing practice that targets vulnerable consumers is
unethical. It is a way of exploiting their weakness and manipulating it for the marketer’s
advantage. A way that this concern unfolds involves people who are vulnerable in both
senses. Most of the time, people can become vulnerable as a buyer for the reason that
they are vulnerable in some more general sense. For example, a sick individual’s fear
may cause him to make uninformed consumer decisions. Another, elderly people are
vulnerable to illness and injury that may lead to them making consumer choices
because they are guilty or fearful.

Aside from individuals who can be made vulnerable as buyers since they are vulnerable
to other harms, there are situations wherein individuals become vulnerable to other
harms since they are vulnerable as consumers. Most common examples are alcohol
and tobacco; these products can make a person vulnerable to a number of health risks.

Finally, the marketing practice that is aimed at vulnerable population involves potentially
all individuals as consumer targets. Stealth or undercover marketing refers to
circumstances where people are subject to directed commercial activity and are
unaware of it. Undercover marketing is an intentional effort to hide the true marketing
element of the interaction. There are some companies that hire actors and promoters to
pitch their products in everyday situations. An example is hiring actors to pose as
regular people asking help from a potential customer to take their picture with their
phone. After that, the actor will strike up a conversation with the potential buyer about
how great their phone is, mentioning its features, enticing the potential buyer to
purchase one like it.

There are different ways to build a false sense of confidence in a product, and the most
common avenue for that is the Internet. Marketers use online followers to disseminate
positive information and opinion about their products in an effort to disguise it as
legitimate banter. Experts on marketing regard undercover marketing highly effective
since the buyer’s guard is down. The consumer does not raise questions about the
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message like in a traditional marketing. Consumers perceive the sender’s opinions as
personal, trusting them more than people in advertisements.

Looking at this marketing form ethically, one can argue that stealth marketing involves
deception and connivance to encourage using a product, or deception in the sense that
it is secretly part of a marketing campaign. From a universalist point of view, there is a
breach of trust in the communication, which may lead to the consumer feeling betrayed
therefore no longer trusting the company.

Supply Chain Responsibility

Supply chains that are founded on strong, honest, and trusted relationships are crucial
to assuring product quality, availability and affordability for consumers. These
relationships are essential in improving business competitiveness and lowering
business risks. And like any successful partnership, a strong supply chain is also
founded on the values of accountability and integrity. In recent decades, the ethical
responsibility that a company has for the activities of its supply chain has been
scrutinized. Nike has gotten much attention in this regard.

In the 1990s, Nike was criticized for contracting with factories in countries such as
China Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mexico and for having poor working conditions in these
factories. There were allegations that the factories contracted by Nike were violating
minimum wage, child labor, overtime laws, abuse, etc.

Initially, Nike denied responsibility for the working conditions their suppliers provided for
the laborers. To Nike, it was beyond their responsibility to ensure that their suppliers
treat their workers fairly. Nike Asia even gave a statement saying that they are a
company that markets and designs products, they do not manufacture them.
Predictably, the public was not sold on their response.

Generally, people do not hold an individual responsible for somebody else's actions.
Inferring that an individual is an autonomous being, it is believed that every individual is
responsible for his actions. This is not always true in the case of business. There is a
legal correlation to the concept that a business must be held responsible for its
suppliers' actions. There is a principle called respondent superior which is Latin for “let
the master answer”. In this doctrine, a principal (example: an employer) is held
responsible for its agent's (example: an employee) actions when said agent is acting in
the regular course of his duties to the principal. For instance, if an employee driving a
company vehicle on company business gets into an accident, an employer can be held
responsible for the damages.
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The rationale for doing something that may be considered unjust is that the actions of
the agent is in behalf of the principal, directed by the principal, and that the principal has
direct influence over the actions of the agent. This means, if an employee is doing
something for an employer, at the direction of the employer, and under the influence of
the employer, then the employer must take some (at the very least) responsibility for the
employee's actions.

Sustainable Marketing
Sustainable or green marketing is a trend that is new in marketing and business
sphere but is already proving to be a game changer. It is based on concepts of
environmental and social sustainability, and attempts to meet the needs of the current
generation without destroying the future. Many companies have changed how they
conduct business by this approach. Unlike traditional marketing, sustainable marketing,
needs to heed sustainability principles throughout the marketing process. This aids in
strengthening the brand identity; providing credibility; and ensuring truthful
communications and transparency with partners.

The “Four Ps” of marketing - product, price, promotion, and placement - are the
characteristics considered even before developing a product. The four Ps is also a great
way to understand sustainable marketing.

Product: It is important to have a clear understanding of a product and what makes it

unique before being able to market it successfully. Looking at a product that makes use
of sustainable marketing, a review of how its materials are sourced, ingredients used,
and how it is manufactured must be made. This concerns the use of all natural and
organic materials, sourcing local suppliers, making use of environmentally friendly
materials, and utilizing lean manufacturing and distribution approach that minimize the
firm’s carbon footprint.

Price: Price is the monetary amount a buyer exchanges for a product or service based
on its value or worth. Pricing of sustainable products is an issue that limits a product’s
wide market acceptance and market growth. Green products are likely more expensive
since the materials or ingredients may cost more than their regular counterparts.

Promotion: Promotion is the communication tools and strategies that a company uses
to promote and market their product. There are various ways to promote a company’s
products and benefits. For instance, branding is a vital element of the promotion
platform. A brand is an image in the buyer’s mind for a specific product (or service).
Sustainable brands must have a brand image of the product (or service) having a
positive impact on consumers and the environment.
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Placement: The placement of a product pertains to the place where a product can be
bought. This involves how a product is delivered to the location it will be sold in.
Placement may be a physical store or a virtual store on the Internet. A sustainable
marketing placement that interests consumers is buying locally, Consumers are now
mindful of the environment and carbon emissions from distributing products over long
distances.

Green or sustainable marketing is a means for protecting the environment for the
generations to come. More and more people are becoming concerned with
environmental protection that is why there is a new market that has risen which is the
greenmarket. To survive in this kind of market, companies need to go green in every
aspect of their business. Buyers want to be identified with green compliant companies
and are willing to pay more for a greener lifestyle. So, sustainable marketing is not just
an environmental protection tool but a marketing strategy as well.