Chapter eight

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Social Responsibility in
Marketing Plans
Chapter 8

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BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIALLY
RESPONSIBLE MARKETING
 To be socially responsible is when
the organization is concerned about
people, society and environment
with whom and where it conducts
business.

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 In its most basic form, socially responsible
marketing is taking moral actions that
encourage a positive impact on all the
company’s stakeholders, including
employees, community, consumers, and
shareholders..

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 The main responsibility of marketers in
this aspect is to package and
communicate the organization’s
decisions that will impact the various
communities with which they interact.
Consumers have the right and power to
decide which companies succeed or fail

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 so, marketers have a major responsibility to
ensure their practices are seen as
philanthropic without being phony. Brand
Karma is the perfect example of one of the
means by which consumers make these
decisions.

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Ethical Marketing in General
 Ethical Marketing is a philosophy that focus
focuses on honesty, fairness and
responsibility. Though wrong and right are
subjective, a general set of guidelines can be
put in place to ensure the company’s intent is
broadcasted and achieved. Principles of this
practice include:

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Ethical Marketing in General
 A shared standard of truth in marketing communications
 A clear distinction between advertising and sensationalism
 Endorsements should be clear and transparent
 Consumers’ privacy should be maintained at all times
 Government standards and regulations must be adhered and
practiced by marketers.
 American Ethical Norm

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American Ethical Norms and Values for
marketers
 The American Marketing Association
has designed a statement of ethics that
governs marketers’ actions. The
introduction of the statement reads in
summary that values are the
representation of the collective idea of
desirable and morally correct conduct.

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American Ethical Norms and Values for
marketers
 And that the values outlined in the
document serve as the standard by
which individuals measure their own
actions and those of others including
marketers. These values facilitate best
practices when transacting business
with the public and all involved.

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There are 6 ethical values that marketers
are expected to uphold, and these are:
 Respect – Acknowledge basic human dignity of all the
people involved through efforts to communicate,
understand and meet needs and appreciate
contributions of others.
 Transparency – Create a spirit of openness in the
practice of marketing through communication,
constructive criticism, action, and disclosure
 as well as giveback to the community and protect the ecological environment.

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 Citizenship – Fulfill all legal, economic, philanthropic
and societal responsibilities to all stakeholders as well
as giveback to the community and protect the ecological
environment
 Honesty – Be forthright in dealings and offer value and
integrity.
 as well as giveback to the community and protect the ecological environment.

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 Responsibility – Accept consequences of marketing practices
and serve the needs of customers of all types, while being good
stewards of the environment.
 Fairness – Balance buyer needs and seller interest fairly, and
avoid manipulation in all forms while protecting the information
of the consumers.

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Canadian Marketing Code of Ethics and
Standards and Practices
 The Canadian Marketing Association also
has a code of ethics and standards, which
is a self-regulatory guideline for marketers.
Though marketers are responsible for their
marketing content, members of the CMA
must abide the code. The principles of this
code include:

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 Truthfulness, which is an accurate representation of products
and support of claims, made.
 Personal Information protection, which is defined in the Personal
Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act
(PIPEDA).
 Campaign Limitation covers non-involvement in disparaging or
exploitative practices and the protection of vulnerable consumer
groups such as children, teenagers, people with disabilities and
the elderly.

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 To be socially responsible is when the organization is
concerned about people, society and environment
with whom and where it conducts business. In it’s
most basic form, socially responsible marketing is
taking moral actions that encourage a positive impact
on all the company’s stakeholders, including
employees, community, consumers, and
shareholders.

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Canadian Marketing Code of Ethics
and Standards and Practices
 . The main responsibility of marketers in this aspect is to package
and communicate the organization’s decisions that will impact the
various communities with which they interact. Consumers have
the right and power to decide which companies succeed or fail; so
marketers have a major responsibility to ensure their practices are
seen as philanthropic without being phony. BrandKarma is the
perfect example of one of the means by which consumers make
these decisions.

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Merging Social Responsibility and Marketing
 Companies are aware that consumers
are savvy and opinionated. So with this
in mind, firms should create an ethically
sound marketing plan and integrate it
into all aspects of their marketing mix.

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 Do good not just to look good – focus on being responsible and
how your firm can truly help the neighborhood or country. It is in
doing so that your customers, the press, and all those watching
will be impressed.
 Think about long term effects, not short term gains – short
sighted companies will undervalue the impact of responsible
marketing for instantly gratifying increase.

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 Speak up against company policies that
do not reflect the ethical profile of the
company – as the face of the company,
marketers should voice their concerns
when there is a potential for a practice
to be seen as unethical.

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DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING A
SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE MARKETING
PLAN
 While ethics and social responsibility are
sometimes used interchangeably, there is a
difference between the two terms. Ethics
tends to focus on the individual or marketing
group decision, while social responsibility
takes into consideration the total effect of
marketing practices on society.

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PLAN
 . Next, marketers should forecast the long-term
effects of the decisions that pertain to those
changes. Bearing in mind that a company cannot
satisfy the needs of an entire society, it best
serves marketers to focus their most costly
efforts on their target market, while being aware
of the values of society as a whole. Five simple
steps every marketer can take to create a
sustainable socially responsible market plan are:

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PLAN
 Define what is ethical marketing for your firm.
 Decide which branch of ethics your marketers will apply.
 Determine how the ethical approach to marketing will be
implemented.
 Discuss areas of the firm’s operations that ethical marketing will
be included as part of the program.
 Analyse and assess how much ethical marketing will cost the
company and compare this against the benefits of ethical
marketing in the long run.

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MAIN ASPECTS OF SOCIALLY
 Social conscious marketing addresses the
shortcomings of traditional marketing practices and
follows the philosophy of mindfulness and
responsibility. This philosophy states according to
Chron.com, that company-marketing practices should
be based on consumer satisfaction, innovative ideas
and offer society long-term value and benefit.

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Consumer Orientation
 This socially responsible practice teaches that
companies should base policies and operations
on a consumer perspective. Not only will the
marketer discover the customers’ needs, but they
will also, look at their plans as if they were the
users. As an example, an over crowded website
with lots of ads dumped onto it will be easily
spotted if the marketers were to practice this
method.

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Innovation
 Improving products and services in
innovative manner improves the
experience for users. And improving
marketing strategies, polices, and brand
personality, on an ongoing basis will
position your company as an innovative
experience to be repeated and passed on.

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Value of the product
 A company that produces valuable products
and focuses on offering the customer great
pricing, excellent experiences and great
customer service will not have to resort to
pushy sales tactics and gimmicks. Apple
brand is famous for having people happily
wait in line overnight to be first to own an
upgraded product.

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Sense of Mission
 A clearly defined corporate mission will
help companies be clear about their plans,
goals, and practices. By putting the good
of the community and associates over
profit, companies will indeed see an
increase in the number of consumers
willing to pay premium prices for their
products.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIALLY
 Marketers get the right products to the
right people at the right time. Ethical
marketers ensure the products meet
and exceed their needs, back up their
claims and offer value to the customers
over time while finding opportunities to
pay it forward.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIALLY
 A company that uses ethical and socially
responsible marketing strategy will gain the
respect and trust of the customers they target
and interact with. Over long term, this will
translate to greater benefits all round. Today’s
firms can make their practices more ethical
and responsible by perfecting the following
characteristics.

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Safety
 Any product or service that could be
hazardous to the health conditions of people,
animals or the environment should have clear
advisories and warnings. Once the problem is
identified the company can collect data to
help improve the product and reduce or
eliminate the danger.

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Honesty
 Ensuring a product satisfies a need it
promises to, or aids in providing a
lifestyle it advertises. Advertising should
be transparent about possible side
effects and not puff up results, so clients
come to respect the honesty of your
advertising.

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Transparency
 Any techniques to manipulate and hide
facts and information customers need
could harm a company. Just think of the
way people regard a company such as
Enron that hid information and was not
open to the stakeholders about what
was happening.

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Ethical Pricing:
Gathering data about your target market will
give you information on how much they are
willing to pay for your product. The rest of the
pricing strategy, in a simplified manner, should
be based on overhead costs and supply and
demand. Creating fake shortages and bad
mouthing the competition are considered
unethical marketing practices.

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5 BENEFITS OF INTEGRATING ETHICS
INTO YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY
 1: Moral Marketing Compass: This is especially
important in economic downturns, when unethical
practices become tempting.
 #2: Win-win Marketing: The focus on customer value
will increase company value.

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 #3: Keeps marketing legal: Reduces the risk of cutting corners
and turning a blind eye.
 #4: Goodwill: Goodwill and strong reputation among clients and
associates are the benefits which companies cannot afford to
overlook. Not only will customers believe that the company
cares for them but will also associate the brand with pleasant
feelings and experiences and spread the word.

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 Improved quality of recruits and increases
retention: A good company attracts good
employees, suppliers, investors, and customers,
who will be happy to help the company to
achieve its goals. Great marketing practices
make new marketers feel like their time on the
job will make a difference and so will be less
likely to change jobs, as will suppliers and other
people have involved.

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ETHICAL ISSUES FACED IN MARKETING
 So far we have seen that ethical marketing
can guide advertising, research and data
use, strategies for gaining an edge over
the competition and company polices.
However, there can also be some
problems that arise from trying to employ
an ethical marketing strategy.

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Irresponsible Market Research:
 Improper market research and grouping can
lead to stereotyping that shapes undesirable
beliefs and attitudes and consequently affect
marketing behavior. For example, assuming
that all women like pink and therefore basing
an entire advertising campaign on that belief
could be a costly mistake.

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Selecting Specific Market Audience:
 The use of selective marketing practice is to weed out
the consumers considered by companies as less than
ideal, but often causes social disparity and unrest.
Practices such as Victoria Secrets’ “Perfect Body
Campaign,” which came under a lot of fire from
consumers for excluding every woman but those
shaped like the long legged, thin and well-endowed
supermodels in their ad, can turn people away from a
company.

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Unethical Advertising and Promotion:
 Making false claims about what the product does
and its importance is an unethical way to gain
profit. For many years, Nestlé has been the
target of many boycotts for predatory and
aggressively marketing baby foods, especially to
women in poorer countries as a better substitute
to breastfeeding. This manipulative marketing
technique has caused a lot of damage and loss
to these children and their families.

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Delivery Channel practices
 Marketing in ways like cold calling through
telemarketing companies that purchase leads are
not only annoying, they are disruptive and
untrustworthy. Unsolicited approaches are these
days almost synonymous with direct marketing
and has left the industry with a tainted reputation.
So have television commercials, email spam and
direct mail, which people are going to significant
lengths to avoid.

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Dealing with competitors
 : Many companies advertise cheap prices
as a “bait” and then once they draw in the
customers, “switch” them over to a more
costly product, because the advertised
good was not available, insufficient or not
of any value to the customer. Many online
surveys and work at home opportunities
use this unethical marketing technique.

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Pricing strategies:
 Predatory pricing or pricing beneath the
competition so as to cannibalize the market
and restrict the competition is an unethical
pricing strategy. And setting up barriers that
prevent smaller companies from entering the
market is unethical as well.

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SUMMARY OF (UN)ETHICAL MARKETING
 To sum this all up, in order to be ethical in
marketing attempts, businesses should make
honest claims, and excel at satisfying the needs
of their customers. This practice over time builds
trust and customer confidence in your brand’s
integrity and therefore leads to loyalty, customer
and employee retention, greet public relations
and increase in business from customers
spreading the word.

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SUMMARY OF (UN)ETHICAL
MARKETING
 Unethical marketing behaviors will achieve
the exact opposite and in time could even
lead companies into legal troubles and
dissemination of a bad reputation and worse
customer experience. Below are practices of
unethical marketing, which you should avoid
in order not to ruin your company.

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MARKETING
 Exploitation – avoid using scare tactics and hard
sell and protect the vulnerable consumer.
 Spam – avoid flooding a customer’s voicemail,
mailbox, email or any other means of
communication with unsolicited messages or
aggressive advances.
 .

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MARKETING
 Bad mouthing Competition – focus on the value and
benefit of your product and point out its unique selling
point, the consumers are smart enough to choose the
better product.
 Misleading Advertisement and Information –any
exaggerated claims or dishonest promises will cause the
customers to mistrust you and even determine the failure
of your brand.

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MARKETING
 Philanthropic gestures for public relations
– giving to charities solely for a tax write off
will make the company appear callous and
uncaring and people tend to shy away
from these types of companies and spend
money where they feel the leaders and
marketers are especially humane and
gracious.

Chapter eight

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Chapter eight