Good marketing ethics affect organisational success. Ethics are the principals a person or department uses when making a decision . Sometimes, the choices are clear cut right and wrong. Often, they are more ambiguous ethical dilemmas. Marketing departments face their own particular set of uncertain problems pertaining to product development, pricing policy, distribution activities and promotion. This article aims not to outline a code of ethics but to reveal areas where business ethics must be employed.

Misleading advertising is a common ethical dilemma. Although regulation provides formal boundaries of what an advertisement can and cannot say, marketers must consider the ethical boundaries. Defining when a claim is taken too far or a problem is intentionally, or unintentionally, hidden from the target market is one of the roles of ethics in marketing.

The ethics related to direct marketing is another concern of marketing departments. Customers may feel invaded by direct mail or telemarketing. The use of these promotion avenues should be governed by sound ethical principles.

Another dilemma is the marketing of harmful products-for example, tobacco and fast food. Marketers must decide how much responsibility they take for the harm which these products cause and how much they delegate to consumers or producers. Again, the right choice is not always clear and this is where good ethical marketers can step up.

Marketers should attend to pricing ethics. Predatory pricing, the practice of setting prices to drive out competition, can be harmful to consumers so marketers must tread carefully. Policy designed to foster a healthy marketing environment must be balanced against profit requirements.

How cause-related marketing is managed can become another ethical dilemma for marketers. The sincerity of a company's interest in a particular cause-the environment or education-can impact on customers' and society's perception of that company. Marketing departments responsible for the relationship with a cause must manage it openly and honestly.

How their product affects the environment is of increasing concern to marketing departments. 'Green' practices can improve the good standing of a company and marketing department in the community. Marketers may be challenged by the costs of some environmentally-friendly choices but must consider their responsibility to society.

Many other ethical issues confront marketing executives. How clearly and in what way consumers are informed of price or size changes must be weighed against costs. Marketing departments of resellers must consider the ethics behind their mark-up policies. Distribution issues include quality of transport. For example, fresh food requires healthy transport conditions.

Ultimately, ethics relates to organisational performance in generating goodwill for a particular company. This goodwill should translate into sales. Ethical behaviour by the marketing department will make the department and even the company a more attractive place to work as the company's good reputation will transfer to its employees. Motivated, proud employees will improve performance. Bad marketing ethics will destroy a good reputations which is arguably much harder to build than sales numbers.

For more on marketing ethics, I recommend reading Chapter 3 from Marketing Core Concepts and Applications by Professor Greg Elliot, Dr. Sharyn Rundle-Thiele, Dr. David Waller and Dr. Angela Paladino.

Learn more about this author, Lauren Okely.
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