Ebook: Ethics In Marketing : Sea Change On Potemkin Village

Ethics in marketing: sea change or Potemkin village?While marketers might define marketing ethics as something like “moral principlesgoverning right and wrong behaviour in marketing”, increasingly cynical consumersmight well claim that the expression is actually an oxymoron. For example, asdiscussed by Rotfeld (2005) the marketing function can be heavily criticised forencouraging “conspicuous consumption” of unnecessary goods, bombardingcustomers with SPAM, disregarding customer privacy, wasteful packaging ofgoods, misleading pricing structures; the list of supposedly “unethical” marketingpractices goes on and on. A number of excellent case studies can be found in Davidson(2003).With the rising brand profile of organisations such as Coop Bank or the Body Shopthat have put ethics at the centre of their business operations, many businesses are“jumping on the ethical bandwagon” in their search for customer approval throughsimilar differentiation. However, if the reality of their marketing operations does notlive up to the ethical rhetoric that they preach, these businesses risk global exposure oftheir shortcomings on the Internet by disappointed customers or eager pressure groups(Golin, 2003).The very nature of ethical debate centres upon the “grey area” between the legal andthe illegal. Recent legislation such as the Distance Selling Directive and updates to theData Protection Act poses new marketing challenges across all industry sectors. Butthe law cannot keep up with rapid developments in technology. In the realm of theInternet for example, many of the ethical issues are still finding legal precedent and thelaw has yet to provide sufficient guidance on how business should behave. One hopefultrend for marketers is the evolution of new voluntary standards such as AA1000(developed by the Institute for Social and Ethical Accountability), the Global ReportingInitiative (developed by a wide range of international organisations), and Project Sigma(a sustainability management standard under development by the British StandardsInstitution and Forum for the Future).This Special Issue of Qualitative Marketing Research: An International Journalprovides insights from a range of perspectives as to how these pitfalls might beavoided and “ethical marketing” actually achieved in practice. It seeks to bring together the academic and business community in order to stimulate further debateand discussion of these contemporary issues and hence formulate a way forward formarketers. In particular it covers such diverse subjects as green marketing; advertisingdirected at children; the behaviour of “ethical consumers” in terms of their lifestylesand purchasing patterns; erotic retailing on the high street; wine marketing; and therole of new technology in empowering customer service employees. Each author hasspecifically considered the special theme of this issue, namely if the focus of theirresearch has highlighted examples of truly “ethical” marketing, or if in fact the detailedanalysis revealed just a Potemkin Village[1].Most of the papers have been developed from those presented to the Ethical andSocietal Issues in Marketing (Easi marketing) conference at Brunel University in May2004. A further paper from this workshop on the subject of “de-shopping” (King andDennis) will appear in the next edition of this journal. The contributions to this SpecialIssue can be briefly summarised as follows.Peattie and Crane review the history of “green” marketing since the early 1990s inorder to understand how the marketing discipline can make a more positivecontribution towards greater sustainability. Their findings indicate that much of whathas been commonly referred to as “green” marketing is in fact a Potemkin Village, andnot underpinned by a true environmental philosophy. This explains why theanticipated “green revolution” in marketing has yet to materialise in the form ofradically different products and markets.O’Sullivan and Hogan both focus on marketing to children. O’Sullivan aims toenrich our understanding of debate and policy in this area by questioning thestandard models of childhood implied within contemporary UK debate. His paperidentifies a role for qualitative market research in establishing a more fullyarticulated account of childhood which extends beyond traditional assumptionsbased on positivist research. There are of course implications for marketers ingaining a better understanding of children’s experience of advertising, and Hogannotes how many commercial organisations find difficulty in creating the right fitbetween their moral and business responsibilities. Marketers often have to weigh uptheir moral responsibilities towards many different stakeholders, and this becomesmore complex when young children are targeted by advertisers. Based on recentqualitative research carried out with the leading toy companies in the UK, the paperdiscusses the fit between what toy companies say and do in terms of marketing tochildren and assesses whether this behaviour represents a sea change or is justanother example of a Potemkin Village.Memery, Megicks and Williams note that there has so far been limitedinvestigation of the behaviour of consumers with regard to ethical business whenmaking buying decisions. The paper reports the findings of a preliminaryinvestigation into the influence of social responsibility on grocery shoppingbehaviour. It draws upon literature in the area of ethics, social responsibility,shopping and store image to determine factors that influence purchasing behaviourin this sector. An outline typology of key factors of concern to “socially responsible”consumers is developed. The findings suggest that three main areas of concernexist, relating to food quality and safety; human rights and ethical trading; and“green” issues, but this is perhaps a Potemkin Village. In fact shoppers makecomplex decisions about which shops to use and what products to buy based upon a trade off between ethical factors and standard retail purchasing decisions such aslocation, price and merchandise range.Bekin, Carrigan and Szmigin consider another aspect of consumer behaviour intheir participant observation study of “collective voluntarily simplified lifestyles” inthe UK. Another Potemkin Village? The findings indicate that while some consumersfound that voluntary simplicity re-instated their enjoyment of life, others found thatcertain goals remained unfulfilled and other unexpected issues arose, such as thechallenges of mobility in the attainment of environmental goals. Although thecommunities studied here inhabited the extreme end of the voluntary simplicityspectrum, the authors demonstrate that their role in shaping the practices and attitudesof other consumers is clear.Kent considers the ethical implications of erotic retailing in the context of shopsselling sexually arousing products to women. The paper has considerable originality inits field, assessing the moral implications of access to sexual imagery and products inthe High Street and examining the boundaries of its acceptability in society. Thefindings demonstrate a typology of erotic retailing in terms of the inter-relatedness ofcommercial opportunity with social and cultural developments in the late twentiethcentury. A philosophical answer to the ethics of erotic retailing is proposed, and thepractical implications concern future opportunities for a rapidly expanding field ofcommercial activity and a solution to the ethical problem of “selling sex”. Richardsonsimilarly explores the marketing of product that carries inherent ethical issues – wine.Concerns arise at every stage: product, production and, of course, marketing. Using theWine industry as a case study, the author posits a novel model as a framework: the“ethical cube”.Ayios and Harris investigate whether technological developments can be used incall centre environments to build lasting customer relationships beyond the usual focuson efficiency gains through automation which is the Potemkin Village of this field. Theauthors draw upon depth interviews to critically examine the ways in which caringattitudes and competent behaviour of call centre staff can contribute to buildingdurable bases for customer trust. The findings demonstrate that a truly optimalapplication of technology can create a shared system whereby the knowledge ofemployees is applied in a positive way to build trusting relationships with customers.Multi-channel environments for customer interaction offer great potential forcompetitive advantage when the convenience of channel choice is creativelycombined with competent and empathetic customer service.We hope that you will enjoy reading these papers and that the issues discussed willprovoke further debate and investigation in this very topical business area.Charles Dennis and Lisa Harris Guest Editors Previously published in: Program: Qualitative Market Research, Volume 8, Number 4, 2005