Marketing, Brand Protection, Food Production, Agribusiness & Obesity

Be sure to base your initial post and responses on course materials, 

Discussion #1

1. It has happened to all of us.  You go online to find a hotel for business, or a vacation and you find a hotel that is well located at a very attractive price.  You go through the reservation process, and right on the final page as you are preparing to authorize a charge on your credit card, there appears a charge called a resort fee or a facilities fee as well as taxes on that fee that raise the nightly cost of the hotel room by 30%.  You give in as you have already spent too much time searching for a room and hit the button that charges your credit card.  That is what hotels count on.  The resort fee has become a widespread practice that makes a lot of money for the hotel industry.  Although there are some legal actions and proposed legislation, the practice has not been declared illegal.  Read: https://www.consumerreports.org/fees-billing/the-sneaky-ways-hotels-are-hiding-their-resort-fees/

• Do you think the resort fee practice constitutes deceptive advertising?  Why or why not?
• Do you think the practice is unethical?  Why or why not?

The Business Ethics Workshop (2012) Washington, DC: The Saylor Foundation

Chapter 12: The Selling Office: Advertising and Consumer Protection (pages 529-566)

Offensive/Exploitive/Insensitive/Violent—short of illegal

• The Most Offensive Urban Outfitters Products to Ever Exist 
• Sorry About That: Wells Fargo to End Ads Suggesting Science Over Arts
• Update: Hyundai Apologizes For Car Ad Depicting Attempted Suicide
• Ikea apologises over removal of women from Saudi Arabia catalogue 

False Claims to Making One Healthier, Richer, Younger--illegal

• 14 False Advertising Scandals That Cost Brands Millions 
• Controversial Lollipop Ad Goes Up in Times Square
• FTC to Crack Down on Deceptive Weight-Loss Ads
• The fall of “anti-aging” skin care
• FTC Action Puts Deceptive Marketer Out of the Debt Relief Business
• Federal Trade Commission Act Section 5: Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices