User:Gbeno101uottawa/Marketing ethics

Article body
Added section in the article (Individual contribution- Benoit; 46 words):

Meticulous codes of ethics have been devised by multiple professional institutions which aim to communicate conflicts that occur during the implementation of marketing research (The European Society of Marketing and Opinion Research, the Market Research Society, and the Council for Survey Research are a few examples).

Original quote:

"Certainly, it is true that various professional organizations related to the practice of marketing research such as the Council for Survey Research, the Market Research Society and the European Society of Marketing and Opinion Research have developed detailed codes of ethics addressing common conflicts that occur in the execution of marketing research" (Laczniak, 2012).

Two types of marketing ethics
Add section in the article (Individual contribution- Benoit; 113 words): ADD AFTER LEAD

Marketing ethics is known to have similarities with business ethics. Marketing ethics, however, can be divided into two categories :


 * 1) Positive marketing ethics.
 * 2) Normative marketing ethics.

Positive marketing ethics looks at the statement "what is" when it comes to examining marketing practices, an example would be to research fraudulent advertising and keep a record of the violations. Normative marketing ethics looks at theories that dictate how moral marketing should take place. The same theories and substructures used in business ethics to determine its level of morality are used to analyze whether moral marketing is taking place in normative marketing ethics. The three structures are known as duty-based theories, virtue ethics, and utilitarianism.

Original quote:

"Positive marketing ethics looks at marketing practices from the standpoint of “what is.” For example, specifying the percentage of organizations that have codes of ethical marketing practice or tracking the number of violations that deal with deceptive advertising would be examples of positive marketing ethics. In contrast, normative marketing ethics deals with how marketing ought to operate according to some moral standard or theory. The sort of moral standards (or theories) applied to marketing situations involve the usual moral frameworks commonly applied when evaluating business ethics such as utilitarianism, duty-based theories, and virtue ethics" (Laczniak, 2018).

Social Media Marketing Ethics
References that will help with the peer review "Add a section on ethical issues around social media marketing":


 * 1) Rishi, B., Bandyopadhyay, S., Sherrett, M., & Vize, R. (2018). Social media marketing for B2B. In Contemporary issues in social media marketing (1st ed., pp. 46–59). essay, Routledge.
 * 2) Sutherland, K. E. (2021). Strategic Social Media Management: Theory and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan.

What is Ethics in relation to Social Media
Barnes, J. W. (2016). Social Media Ethics made easy: How to comply with Ftc guidelines. Business Expert Press.

Pricing Ethics
Add section in the article (Individual contribution- Benoit; 42 words) ADD UNDERNEATH PRICING ETHICS AS AN INTRODUCTION)

Issues in pricing ethics are related to fairness, specifically the fair treatment of buyers and sellers as well as fair competition. Ethical pricing practice happens when it allows the market to remain competitive and other players in the market are treated fairly.

Original quote:

"The ethical issues in pricing are similar to those governing other aspects of business and deal primarily with fairness—fair competition and fair treatment of buyers and sellers. Generally, any pricing practice that maintains the competitive nature of the market and is fair to market players is ethical; practices that hamper free competition or unfairly treat specific constituencies of buyers or sellers are likely to be unethical" (Garcia, 2012).

Price-Fixing
Add section in the article (Individual contribution- Benoit; 68 words) ADD UNDERNEATH PRICE FIXING)

Horizontal Price- Fixing

Horizontal-price fixing occurs when competitors in a market who are selling the same product or service come to decide on a mutual price that they will both set for their products or services. The anti-trust law in the United States as well as the competition law of the European Union state that horizontal-price fixing agreements are illegal because it creates a monopolistic market environment that can exploit consumers.

Original quote:

"All such agreements are per se illegal under United States antitrust law; that is, the court will assume that any such agreement is anticompetitive and will not hear arguments to the effect that the agreement actually enhances quality, competition, or consumer welfare in a particular case. Horizontal price-fixing agreements are also illegal under European Union (EU) competition law, where they are similarly subject to so-called hard-core restrictions."

"There is nothing illegal about competitors actually setting the same prices as one another or even about them doing so consciously. (Indeed, in a perfectly competitive market, we would expect retailers to sell their goods at the same prices.) The offense lies in their entering into an agreement with one another to set or raise or maintain prices"

Add section in the article (Individual contribution- Benoit; 34 words) ADD UNDERNEATH PRICE FIXING)

Vertical Price-Fixing

Vertical price-fixing is also considered as illegal activity in the United States. This takes place when competitors in the same market enter into an agreement to set a mutual minimum or maximum resale price.

Original quote:

"Vertical price-fixing arrangements include agreements by manufacturers to set minimum or maximum resale prices for their products. Minimum resale price-fixing is often termed resale price maintenance. Direct agreements to maintain resale prices are per se illegal in the United States and subject to “hard-core restriction” in Europe"

Marketing research dangers
Add section in the article (Individual contribution- Benoit, 49 words): ADD UNDERNEATH INVASION OF PRIVACY

(at the beginning of the paragraph):

Without information from the public, it is difficult to do market research.

(after the second sentence):

At times this information can be sensitive and in the wrong hands, ethical abuse and misuse of sensitive data may happen. This is why the invasion of consumer privacy is still an issue in marketing research ethics.

Original quote:

"Because marketing research activity relies heavily on publicly submitted information, some of which is personally sensitive, marketing research is ripe for ethical abuse or misuse. As survey research has become digitized, researchers have gathered substantial records about consumer product and service usage as well as their purchase preferences and satisfaction. As a result, the issue of consumer privacy is firmly at the forefront of marketing research ethics" (Laczniak, 2018).

Add section in the article (Individual contribution- Benoit; 58 words): ADD UNDERNEATH ETHICAL DANGER IN MARKET RESEARCH

(under the list: invasion of privacy and stereotypes)

Profit motive

(underneath stereotypes paragraph)

Manipulation of information and personal data can take place during market research conducted by for-profit organizations because they have a profit motive. This motive can affect the accuracy and objectivity of the marketing research and create an exaggerated positive image of the organization's products and services in order to attract clients to invest in their business.

Original quote:

"Second, most marketing research is conducted by for-profit organizations to aid decision making within corporations. As a result, the profit motive may cause researchers or their clients to compromise the objectivity and precision of the research that is undertaken. Researchers inherently want to provide support for the outcomes their sponsors hope to find. Clients basically want the research they conduct to tell the best possible story about their company and their products. It should not be surprising then that marketers sometimes fall to the temptation of misusing market research information by manipulating or exaggerating the results for the benefit of the client relationship" (Laczniak, 2018).