Q1. Do you agree with the author that marketing ethics is an oxymoron? Why?
Q2. Whose responsibility is it to protect consumers from products that are not good for them (e.g. cigarettes or alcohol)? Manufacturers, customers or Government? Cite relevant theories/evidence to support your arguments.
Q3. Do marketers have a moral responsibility not to use their marketing skills to sell more of their products/services to susceptible groups? Explain.
4 comments:
QUESTION 1:
Do you agree with the author that marketing ethics is an oxymoron? Why?
Base on that case, we are agree with the author which is said that marketing ethics is an oxymoron. This is because, we are already know that the marketers task is to sell their products or services. As a marketer, duty is the most priority for them compared with the effect to the people. It isn’t the marketers job to save the world or make society a better place.
As professional marketers, absolutely they will use their marketing skill to ensure the customer attract to buy their products or services offered. Logically, it would not be a natural act on these companies to try to reduce or restrain consumption of their products or services. There is no company wants to reduce its profit just to make sure the safety of all the people. So, every company will hired a good marketers to promote their products or services which can give more liquidity an profitability to the shareholders.
QUESTION 2:
Whose responsibility is it to protect consumers from products that are not good for them (e.g. cigarettes or alcohol)? Manufactures, customers or Government? Cite relevant theories/evidence to support your arguments.
Roughly , everyone play an important role to make sure they are not influenced to use the products can be harmful themselves. The government institution always make the advertisement and campaign to the society not to use the products that can risk one life . For example, “do not smoking" and "stay away from drug" advertisement often emphasized by the government to the society that it may give adversely impacted to those being use that.
Then, as a good consumer, they already necessarily can differentiate which good and bad to them. It is depend on the individual itself which is also has the responsibility for themselves. The evaluation is in their hands.
Apart from that, as the manufacturer, they also have to take the responsibility to look after the consumer who is use their product or service. Yet, logically this manufacturer absolutely wants their sales increases than to protect the consumer safety. This is refer to the deontological theory which this theory is not recognize result as the relevance factor in ascertaining something action. This theory also said that an action is right or wrong not it caused by benefit to oneself or other person, but because by action oneself or rule which followed.
QUESTION 3:
Do marketers have a moral responsibility not to use their marketing skills to sell more of their products/services to susceptible groups? Explain.
Marketer doesn’t have moral responsibility if not use their marketing skill to sell their product/services to susceptible group because moral responsibility was the important thing for marketing.
Moral responsibility is the way to do with other people to feel responsible. It is because marketer needs marketing skill to sell their product or services to susceptible group to bought it. Each of business need to responsible to make sure their product or services were safety. Every company has a natural drive to expand consumption of its products, leaving any negative consequences to be the result of the free choice of consumers.
According to Mr. Smith, when firms want to profit their business, indirectly, to interest all people care about to create set of free market need a minimize moral set to avoid from manipulation and deception.
Consumer rely on by marketers who was expert in marketing, not only responsible to deliver their product but responsible to perform “due care” to avoid people from dangerous thing with product.
The standard of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is in the background to many discussion of product safety. The caveat emptor approach understands marketing on a simple model of a contractual exchange between a buyer and seller. This perspective assumes that every purchase involve the informed consent of the buyer and therefore it is assumed to be ethically legitimate. Buyers have responsibilities to look out for their own interests and protect their safety when buying a product. From this perspective, business has only the responsibility to provide a good or services at an a great upon price.
The focus for much of the discussion of business’ responsibility for product safety is on assigning liability (fault) for harms caused by unsafe products. The legal doctrine of strict liability is ethically controversial exactly because it holds a business accountable for paying damages whether or not it was at fault. In a strict liability case, no matter how careful the business is in its product or service, if harm result from use, the business is liable.
Marketers have a right to be proud of their field. They search for unmet needs, encourage the development of products and services addressing these needs, manage communications to inform people of these products and services, arrange for easy accessibility and availability, and price the goods in a way that represents superior value delivered vis-à-vis competitors' offerings.
Question 1: Do you agree with the author that marketing ethics is oxymoron? Why?
We agree with the author that marketing is oxymoron. Marketing is an “organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in way that benefit the organization and its stakeholders”. Therefore, the marketing ethics examines the responsibilities associated with bringing a product to the market, promoting it to buyers, and exchange it with them.
The reason why we agree with the author is marketing ethics is oxymoron because the ethics that marketing used is not ethical to the community. For example, in the case study that is discussing about selling tobacco, alcohol, or fast food). These entire products are harmful to the community, but for the company itself it creates a big profit and makes the company live long enough in the industry. Even though they know that the product they sell is may harmful, they keep selling the product because they know there are customer who are willing to pay the price even know about the consequences of taking those products.
Even in Kantian or Utilitarian approach will question about the respect of the autonomy (Kantian) and the mutual benefit (Utilitarian) regarding selling the harmful product to the community or society.
In this case, marketing really are an oxymoron because they are selling those product without thinking the consequences to the community. Marketing ethics mixing the goal of the organization that is profit and the way they are selling the product. This is the real oxymoron to us. Marketing mix everything up just to make the big profit for the organization without thinking any reason that will occur at the end of the day. For example, selling cigarettes can make real big money to the tobacco company. Even, they know that tobacco, alcohol and fast food is addictive or may additive and will try to get everyone who comes of age to start smoking cigarettes or even drinking alcohol and eating fast food . It is the same situation happens to the drugs business except the tobacco, alcohol and fast food business is operates legally but the drugs are illegally.
Q.2 Whose responsibility is it to protect consumers from products that are not good for them (e.g. cigarettes or alcohol)? Manufacturers, customers or Governments? Give relevant theories/evidence to support your arguments.
To protect consumers from product that are not good from them, it should be manufactures itself, customers and governments play the role part to create the boundaries for the customers to buy the products.
Customers can use the caveat emptor approach (let the buyer beware). This approach will make customers to understand marketing on a simple model of a contractual exchange between buyer and seller. It assumes that every purchase involves the informed consent of the buyer and therefore it is assumed to be ethically legitimate. Customers have the responsibility to look out for their own interests and protect their own safety when buying a product.
There are implications of this within the business sphere is that unless explicitly warrants a product as safe, unless, in other words, the seller promises otherwise, buyers are liable for any harms they suffer. But, the ‘implied warranty of merchantability’ holds that in selling a product a business implicitly offers assurances that the product is reasonably suitable for it purpose. The approach assumes the customers adequately understand the products well enough that they can reasonably be expected to protect themselves.
As for the manufacturers, they can use the negligence, a concept from the area of law known as torts, provides a second avenue for consumers to hold producers or manufacturers responsible for their products. Negligence is a central component of tort law that involves a type of ethical neglect, specifically neglecting one’s duty to exercise reasonable care not to harm other people. Negligence can be characterized as a failure to exercise reasonable care or ordinary vigilance that results in an injury to another. It also involves the ability to foresee the consequences of our acts and failing to take the steps to avoid the likely harmful consequences. One standard would hold people liable only for those harms they actually foresaw occurring.
Another extreme one of the contract approach is strict liability that is producers or manufacturers owe compensation to consumers for any harm caused by their products.
Government may play the role part about responsibilities to protect the customers from products that are not good. There are several steps that governments could implement to protect the customers. For example:
i) Banning or restricting the sale or use of the product or service.
The power of autonomy is in government hands and they can ban restrict the product or services that is known can be harmful to the customers. Maybe some products such as medications can be purchased by using the doctor’s prescriptions because some of the medications are may contain poison to prevent the misused.
ii) Banning or limiting advertising or promotion of the product.
Banning or limiting the advertising of the product may reduce the number of potential customers about the product that harmful to them. The lack of the information about the product may help the number of user of the harmful product.
iii) Public education campaigns.
Government should create a social policy to use the public education to raise a nation of nonsmokers or nondrinkers same as zero usage of drugs. Children will be taught about the bad of the products and the consequences if take that products.
Q3. Do marketers have a moral responsibility not to use their marketing skills to sell more of their products/services to susceptible groups? Explain.
There are four marketing skills that help marketing to sell their products. That is product, price, promotion, and placement. Every marketer and marketing uses this Four Ps to market their product in the industry. Every marketer has a moral responsibility from the moment they create the product and for who the products create and which type of customers will buy the product in the market. But there are so many competitions among thousands of company that doing the same business.
Here, the marketer will start to lose their moral responsibility and forget to use the proper skill to market their product. They may sell their product purposely for the profit of the organization and themselves. Then, they will forget the responsibility to the customers and every consequence that occurs from the use of the product that may harm customer will be hiding to achieve their goal.
There is ethically good and bad way for influencing others. Ethically commendable ways to influence another are persuading, asking, informing, and advising. But, the unethically is threats, coercion, deception, manipulation and lying. Marketers will try to influence customers by manipulate them to use their product without mentioning the product harmfulness. To manipulate something is to guide or direct its behavior. Manipulations need not to involve total control and in fact it more likely suggests a process of subtle direction or management. Marketers can manipulate someone is through deception, one form of which is an outright lie.
Many marketers will take their responsibility lightly major based on the incentive that they can make from the product. Incentive argument seems to misunderstand the nature of the strict liability. Holding someone accountable for harm can provide an incentive only if they could have done otherwise that is the harm was foreseeable and the failure of the product that could harm the customers and the failure to act were negligent.
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