Sunday, July 7, 2013

A634.5.4.RB - Shuck, Allison

Is Marketing Evil?

After reading the article by El Sayed and El Ghazaly (n.d.), discuss your views on the following:

1.      Do you feel ethical guidelines make a different to marketers?

Yes and No, it really depends on the company’s current existence/success within the market. Take Victoria Secret for example, the company is well known and highly successful, many of its customers are currently devoted to its product line. Therefore, implementing new ethical guideline may not impact the company’s promotional techniques and/or profits.

2.      How can companies balance the need to win with being ethical?

To answer this question, one must determine what it ethical/unethical; however, doing so it not easy. Why, because ethics is dependent of culture in which you live. Thus, it can be said that “it's the underlying culture that enables a company to grow, simply because marketing is the glue that sticks the consumer to the company or the product it sells” ( El Sayed and El Ghazaly, n.d.). So, as long as the company focuses on the customer needs and develops an ethical strategy to satisfy those needs, the company will win.

3.      Is it ethical to track your buying habits or web visits to target you for marketing purposes?

Personally, I don’t think it is unethical to do so. I love going to the grocery store and receiving a coupon when I cash out. It is marketing genius! And for the most part, I purchase the same products each week, so receiving a coupon is just an added benefit.

4.      As a leader, how will you manage the ethical aspects of your marketing efforts?

As a photographer, my main goal is to satisfy the customer. I want to make the customer happy regardless of cost. Therefore, I believe in offing professional photography at a relatively inexpensive price. That being said, any marketing promotions I offer must live up to that standard. 

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