Business ethics

Marketing professionals with a backbone reap great rewards, including a solid career with the potential for advancement. But the high road is not always the easiest path to take. Making moral decisions also requires intelligence and forethought. It’s easy to fudge the truth to make a sale and believe the bottom line will be the better for it. In fact, everyone in business is wise to develop moral fibers, because ethical problems often lead to legal problems, which bite into profits, not to mention your career ladder. The first step to confronting any dilemma is recognizing the moral dimension of it. Only then can you properly weigh the pros and cons of your options. National and international organizations have developed marketing codes of ethics to guide business practices. When a business commits to a marketing code of ethics, it commits to conducting its affairs with integrity and with the customer’s well-being in mind. The Business Marketing Association (BMA) list things such as branding, promotion, and community outreach as areas of marketing good conduct. Categories for marketing ethics may include ethical norms and values as defined by the American Marketing Association (AMA), along with means of implementation. Here are common ethical dilemmas you’re likely to face as a marketing professional and steps to keep your reputation intact (Boundless, 2017).

Marketing ethics addresses principles and standards that define acceptable conduct in the marketplace. Marketing usually occurs in the context of an organization, and unethical activities usually develops from the pressure to meet performance objectives. Some obvious ethical issues in marketing involve clear-cut attempts to deceive or take advantage of a situation. This is usually in the benefit of a company’s bottom line in profits. These companies play on the public morals and ethical standards even if that’s what they believe in as an organization. Other ethical marketing dilemmas include, but is not limited to, selling customer information, recalling of flawed products, hiring actors to praise the company (stealth marketing), and finally market comparison (Ferrell, 2017). All will be discussed using the following references:

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