Ethics in Marketing

Ethics
•  Ethics is the art and science of determining
good and bad or right and wrong moral
behavior of a single or group of people.
 Marketing
• The management process through which goods
and services move from concept to the customer.
It includes the coordination of four elements
called the 4 P's of marketing:
• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion
 Ethics in Marketing
• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion
• Packaging and Labeling
 Ethics in Product Development
• The Product and services are
safe and fit for their intended
use
• Any substantial risk associated
with product usage should be
disclosed to customer
• Product should be made by
ethical means
 Ethics in pricing
• Price is the money a consumer is to pay for
the value of goods and services received

Unethical Practice related to pricing of the

product
• Price Fixing
India cement firms fined $1.1bn for price fixing
Top brewers in India raided by watchdog in price-fixing probe
 Ethics in pricing
• Bait and Switch Pricing
 Ethics in pricing
Price Discrimination
• In a competitive market, price discrimination
occurs when identical goods and services are
sold at different prices by the same provider.

price varies according to consumer attributes such as

age, gender, location, and economic status
 Ethics in pricing
• Predatory Pricing
This is when the competitors are driven out by the low prices (less
than cost) and then the company raises price to their former level

Uber Sued For Predatory Pricing By San Francisco Taxi Company

Ola attacks Uber over ‘predatory pricing’ in India

India slaps anti-dumping duty on Chinese paracetamol 

 Ethics in pricing
• Price Skimming
It is a pricing strategy in which a company sets a
relatively high price for a product and service
at first, then lowers the price over time
It allows the firm to recover its cost quickly
before competition sets in
 Ethics in pricing
• Price Gouging
Price gouging occurs when in the wake of an
emergency, seller of certain necessary goods
sharply raise their prices
 Ethics in distribution
• Selling expired products
• Selling drugs without prescription
• Goods are transported in an unsafe manner
• Firms coercively sells a slow moving product
along with fast moving one to retailer
• Hoarding by distributers – agro based
products
 Ethics in packaging and labeling
Purpose of Packaging
• Protecting the product from
damage during shipping
• Promoting the product to
ultimate user

Ethically packaging of product

should be:
• Safe for user
• Safe packaging of dangerous
goods
• Correctly labeled
 Ethical issues in advertising
• Deceptive and misleading advertisement
• Use of sexual themes
• Use of fear
• Creating scare about personal demographics
• Surrogate advertisement
• Advertisement to children
 Some Ethical Issues in HRM
• Poaching
Poaching as a practice is used by head hunters to
satisfy one client at the same time enrage
another organization. It refers to a practice that
most head hunters use to target particular
employees in rival organizations and offer them
higher packages, thus dislocating them from
their current job and placing them with their
direct competitors
• Doctoring of resume
Many candidates doctor and bloat their resumes
to meet existing marketing needs. Many lie on
their resume when it comes to their skills and
abilities. This many times lead to wrong hiring
which further lead to overall dip in
organizational productivity
• Testing and invasion of privacy
Privacy issues crop up when selection test try to
probe unnecessary information. Recruiters
should not use the data that has been collected
in a selection test for any other purpose other
than employment decision
• Nepotism
The term ‘nepotism’ is derived from the Italian
word ‘nipote’, which means nephew. Nepotism
refers to a form of unfair workplace procedure,
when family members or friends of the boss or
manager are hired not purely for their skills,
experience or knowledge. It means hiring and
promoting people based on their familial relations
to the top management and the hiring managers