Ethics

Introduction

Over the years, many people and organizations have debated about the degree of influence that ethics have on marketing communication as a whole. There are a great number of advertising and marketing communications messages who have generated accusations in regard to the integrity of the profession. For instance, marketers prepare deceptive and misleading advertisements, and then create advertisements linked to bad habits and intimate subjects and so on. Some inappropriate actions have led to new laws and regulations. As a result, most organizations have developed a code of ethics as a guideline to help marketing practitioners make better decisions and identify their own standards as marketing communication professionals.

The term 'Ethics' refers to the moral principles or value that serve as operational guidelines for both individuals and organizations which have relationships with each other. It also can be viewed as the standard of behavior by which conduct is judged as well as concerned not only with what is right and wrong, but also with what is good and bad (Clow and Baack 2002). Ethical decision making is not always easy. Frequently, its decision making is complicated by aspects of the organization in which the marketing professional is employed (Chonko 1995). Nonetheless, there are several issues and factors affecting ethical practice in the marketing communication profession including organizational support, higher education, globalization, cultural, etc., which many marketing practitioners in organizations have to seriously take into account when they encounter ethical dilemmas as well as when creating marketing communication programs. This essay will explore all of these aspects as previously mentioned in fields that have an impact on the marketing communication profession and identify relevant issues with some examples so as to acquire clearer picture.

The amount of organizational support marketing communication professionals receive.

Currently, marketing communication plays a significant role as well as becomes more sophisticated in the global marketplace than ever. Increasingly, there is focus on marketing communication professional by various groups and organisations. Consequently, almost every type of business and organizations adopt this strategy to improve their internal and external communication with target audiences in order to increase potential of brand competition (Duncan 2002). Marketing communication is a part of business and is vital key to support the whole organisation's strategy in order to achieve business success. More importantly, the purpose of business, of course, is for producing goods and services to make a profit. It is supposed to receive something in return from the business. So, it has to do everything to attain these goals (Chonko 1995). A great deal of problems with ethical conduct relate to the pressures of a competitive market system that causes firms to compete fiercely with one another. The level of competitiveness can quite naturally result in a firm's seeking to gain an advantage over a competitor by taking an action that is unethical, illegal, or both. Such actions can run across the marketing communication profession (Powers 1991). As a business discipline, marketing is particularly vulnerable to criticism of ethical practices. Some critics comment that business act irresponsibly if they take on tasks relating to ethical decision making for example selfishness, fraud, dishonesty and so on. For that reason, as the amount of organisationals supports that marketing communication professionals receive are gradually rising, ethical practice tends to be taken into account more seriously.

However, marketing professionals are employed by a variety of organisations in different industries with different characteristics. Some of these organisations have characteristics that are more conductive than others to ethical behaviour, for instance some organisations have top managers that are more receptive to ethical behaviour and some organisations actively seek to hire professionals of high moral character, Raelin (cited in (Chonko 1995). Regardless of the intensity of the competition in business marketing, at the same time, organizations must also compete in an ethical behavior for the sake of social responsibility or to be good citizens of society. Eventually, this practice will lead to building corporate brand image and loyalty. That is why, today, many organizations have become more interested in ethical practice in the marketing communication profession issues (Summers 2003).

According to Fill (2002), marketing communications profession as a function is often linked in the public mind with ethical abuse, mainly because of the way it operates at the boundary between the firm and its customers. Besides, marketing professionals seem to believe that ethical practices are important components of organisationals effectiveness. Thus, they need to include these ethical corporate values into their marketing decisions. This view is supported by Creyer and Ross (cited in (Fill 2002) who found that many customers do take a company's ethics into account in making purchase decision and that they may pay a higher price to a firm whose behaviour is approved by them. Clearly, the credible information about corporate behaviour is a vital factor in this relationship. It would seem, therefore, that the growth of profession would not occur unless an organisation supports it. The organisation's support can be reflected in the organisational culture, vision, activities. Chonko (1995) added that most marketing organisations have policies ad procedures concerning ethical behaviours. To be effective, these policies must be sufficient for allowing the detection of ethics violations. Also, organisational policies must provide a system of controls that decrease or eliminates such easy opportunities for unethical behaviour. Subsequently, adopting the profession and applying it in organisations are very important to the growth and success of both organisations and the profession.

The illustration above is taken from Heineken web page. The message 'Enjoy Heineken Responsibly' is a sample of the company's ethical practice which supports marketing communication professional. The website also explains what alcohol is, what effects it can have on consumer's body if they drink too much, drinking guidelines and other useful instructions in order to prevent the abuse and misuse of its products. This practice reflects corporate ethical responsibility (Heineken 2005). http://www.heineken.com/usa/cc/responsibly/default.aspx

The effect of higher education

According to Wikimedia