Ethics of Marketing

I'm interested in anyone's comments on ethics in marketing. This is a very broad subject which can include claims in advertising and marketing, sustainable marketing, marketing to children, predatory marketing, ethical standards and so forth.

Personally, I have strong views on ethics in marketing. A friend runs a business in team development with the tagline facta non verba - and I think many marketers would do well to follow this in their approach - translated it means deeds not words. I believe perhaps 80% of all marketing is ethical in it's approach. But there is a significant minority of marketing which certainly needs to be rethought from an ethical viewpoint.

First, let's define what I mean by ethics so there is no confusion as to the subject matter of this article - I am defining ethics as the moral choices made by an individual in relationship to others - in the broader sense of the word 'individual' this could also mean an individual company - since at some point in a company some individual has to take responsibility for the marketing which is done by that company.

Let's take green marketing for example: Most marketers and many people in the community will have heard the term 'greenwashing' by now - coined to describe companies who use green messages innapropriately to try and convince consumers they are green or greener than the competition. When I say innapropriately, you can substitute the word unethically or untruthfully if you like.

In my opinion, being green will not be a differentiating point for companies or products for very long - it will become a 'ticket to the game' so companies might be better served by just doing not talking - and get properly green before talking about it.

More on the ethics of marketing soon. Stay tuned...