Marketing essay amend

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Op-Ed on Marketing Ethics

Op-Ed on Marketing Ethics

Op-ed in response to Dr. Nemko

Introduction

In reading Dr. Nemko’s criticisms about marketing in Psychology Today, I must admit that I have plucked some of the positive observations out it. For example, we can ask why some brand names like Pepsi, Coca Cola spend fortunes in marketing a product with some underlying health issues (Nemko, 2017). Too much sugar in those products causes life style disease that eventually results into deaths. Isn’t that reducing the market they are competing for? But that is a question for another day. In this piece I want to take Dr. Nemko head on by simply focusing on the ethical side of marketing in our modern age.

Dr. Nemko must be reminded that we are today operating on a globalized world with the cardinal law of liberalism in every sector of our lives. Various companies are therefore simply taking advantage of this opportunity. It is free enterprise defined by the market laws of demand and supply (Nemko, 2017). This means you demand and I supply you with. Therefore, until and unless a customer’s demands a product by placing some order, the company cannot make their sales or supply that product to them. This is called democratization of the market. No company will company and force a product down the throat of a customer, but because the free enterprise has allowed them to sell their products, they do it in the best way possible for that product to reach the customer (Purwanto et al., 2019). They use marketing as a tool to drive their agenda of sales and they spend fortunes into it, meaning they have to expect some good return. Therefore, the question about the right or wrong or how ethical this is does not necessary convicts the seller. But it only convicts the buyer the moment they decide to buy.

So to me the problem is not just unethical marketing parse but the problem relies on the very nature of humans that is inherently attracted to things they can see, hear or taste. Seeing is quite misleading sometimes because it brings to the fore the concerns about selective perception. Yes the company’s might be lying by branding their products to look appealing for the customer in the outside but choice to buy is fundamentally unconditional (Purwanto et al., 2019). One has to purchase something they are feeling satisfied with and Dr. Nemko is short of scientific studies proving that people are complaining about the products. As a matter of fact some customers are very satisfied with such products and they will go for them over and over again (Nemko, 2017). As a customer, I understand he might have experienced some of the unethical marketing and perhaps become a victim of buying a product without knowing the real content, but his argument can broadly suffer from what is known as generalization.

Conclusion

Finally, unless the market is properly regulated and standards of products to be sold in it spelt out clearly, then we cannot label marketing as being unethical. Unless, the tool is well regulated and a clear standard that protects the lives of buyers is set for it, then we cannot say it is manipulative.

References

Nemko, M. (2017). Marketing is evil: Marketers use many psychological ploys to make you buy what you shouldn’t [Blog post].

Purwanto, R. M., Mukharrom, T., Zhilyakov, D. I., Pamuji, E., & Shankar, K. (2019). Study the importance of business ethics and ethical marketing in digital era. Journal of Critical Reviews, 6(5), 150-154.