Marketing ethics addresses principles and standards that define acceptable conduct in the marketplace. Marketing usually occurs in the context of an organisation and unethical activities usually develop from the pressure to meet performance objectives. Some obvious ethical issues in marketing involve clear-cut attempts to deceive or take advantage of a situation.
Take for instance the case of the “Marlboro Man” advertisements/marketing campaign; a tall, dark (darker than the average Caucasian male), denim clad, cowboy hat wearing man in his late twenties, riding a handsome horse through the wild-west. A perfect picture of a man living life to the fullest. A man who has no boundaries, fears nothing. The perfect alpha male smoking a Marlboro, showing the world that a cigarette is all it takes to complete a man, inspiring thousands across the globe to start smoking in order to become the perfect man — the Marlboro Man.
Reality couldn’t be farther from the truth. Smoking causes a number of fatal diseases and contains one of the most addictive substances known to man – nicotine. Yet the average Joe, who has been conditioned by years of Hollywood blockbusters and other marketing gimmicks into believing that somehow he is incomplete and inadequate as a person unless he starts smoking a cigarette, falls for the “Marlboro Man” ploy. It is a known fact that tobacco companies approach Hollywood movie producers with offers of large monetary ‘contributions’ towards the budgets, asking for the leading men to be shown smoking cigarettes on the big screen. When Marlon Brando lights a cigarette on screen and goes about his business of being a cinematic god, our minds take notice, our eyes light up. Inhale. Exhale. Without us even being aware of it, we are being marketed to. We are being subliminally influenced into associating the cigarette with some supernatural shortcut for being Mr Brando.
It is not just the tobacco industry that ‘tricks’ us into buying a product. Marketers all over the world are busy using different tactics that will make us buy their products. A certain Mr Steve Jobs is currently one of the best in the business right now. Buy an Apple product and a few months later there’s a new model out on the market with features your months old device could never even dream of having. If you don’t own the latest one, you’re inadequate somehow. “Hey, my new iphone 7GSMPR has 27 stages of angry birds”. “But my 6GSMPR only has 26!”. “Loser!” Welcome to the age of products defining a man’s personality.
But to blame marketers for doing their job would tantamount to blaming a banker for a person’s bankruptcy. Globalisation has driven competition among businesses to the point where success is measured in terms of profits. Capitalism, free market and a fair playing field for all have translated into organisations defining success purely in monetary terms. As the world’s population increases, so does the need for creating more jobs. An increasing population also translates into an increasing market space. Therefore, in order to increase profits and jobs and to tap into a newer/greater share of the market, marketers need to do whatever is necessary to drive off competition. They need to come up with novel ideas about how to make their products appeal to masses. If that means showing a man climbing Mount Everest and then lighting a cigarette, so be it.
A person’s purchase decision depends on a number of variables. These variables may be different for each individual and each product. A marketing campaign that achieves the right blend of these variables is the one that eventually succeeds. Mixing obvious techniques with subliminal ones provides marketers with an opportunity to tap into consumers’ minds and influence purchase decisions, which in turn drives the global economy.
The writer is a business administration professional and has done extensive research on subliminal marketing. He can be contacted at [email protected]
