Ethics in marketing: sea change or Potemkin village?

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Qualitative Market Research

ISSN: 1352-2752

Article publication date: 1 December 2005

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Citation

Dennis, C. and Harris, L. (2005), "Ethics in marketing: sea change or Potemkin village?", Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 8 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/qmr.2005.21608daa.001

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2005, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Ethics in marketing: sea change or Potemkin village?

Dr Charles Dennis FCIM is a senior lecturer in marketing and retail management at Brunel University, London, UK. He has published widely on consumer behaviour and “why people shop where they do”. The textbook Marketing the E-business (Harris and Dennis, 2002) and research-based E-retailing (Dennis, Fenech and Merillees, 2004) were published by Routledge; and research monograph Objects of Desire: Consumer Behaviour in Shopping Centre Choice, (Dennis, 2005) by Palgrave.

Dr Lisa Harris worked in retail banking for ten years and her PhD research examined the management of change in the banking industry in the early days of the Internet. She currently lectures at Brunel University and is running a research project reviewing emerging trends in multi-channel marketing. Lisa is a Trustee of the Chartered Institute of Marketing's International Board and she also teaches marketing courses for the Student Support Group and Oxford College of Marketing.

Ethics in marketing: sea change or Potemkin village?

While marketers might define marketing ethics as something like “moral principles governing right and wrong behaviour in marketing”, increasingly cynical consumers might well claim that the expression is actually an oxymoron. For example, as discussed by Rotfeld (2005) the marketing function can be heavily criticised for encouraging “conspicuous consumption” of unnecessary goods, bombarding customers with SPAM, disregarding customer privacy, wasteful packaging of goods, misleading pricing structures; the list of supposedly “unethical” marketing practices goes on and on. A number of excellent case studies can be found in Davidson (2003).

With the rising brand profile of organisations such as Coop Bank or the Body Shop that have put ethics at the centre of their business operations, many businesses are “jumping on the ethical bandwagon” in their search for customer approval through similar differentiation. However, if the reality of their marketing operations does not live up to the ethical rhetoric that they preach, these businesses risk global exposure of their shortcomings on the Internet by disappointed customers or eager pressure groups (Golin, 2003).

The very nature of ethical debate centres upon the “grey area” between the legal and the illegal. Recent legislation such as the Distance Selling Directive and updates to the Data Protection Act poses new marketing challenges across all industry sectors. But the law cannot keep up with rapid developments in technology. In the realm of the Internet for example, many of the ethical issues are still finding legal precedent and the law has yet to provide sufficient guidance on how business should behave. One hopeful trend for marketers is the evolution of new voluntary standards such as AA1000 (developed by the Institute for Social and Ethical Accountability), the Global Reporting Initiative (developed by a wide range of international organisations), and Project Sigma (a sustainability management standard under development by the British Standards Institution and Forum for the Future).

This Special Issue of Qualitative Marketing Research: An International Journal provides insights from a range of perspectives as to how these pitfalls might be avoided and “ethical marketing” actually achieved in practice. It seeks to bring together the academic and business community in order to stimulate further debate and discussion of these contemporary issues and hence formulate a way forward for marketers. In particular it covers such diverse subjects as green marketing; advertising directed at children; the behaviour of “ethical consumers” in terms of their lifestyles and purchasing patterns; erotic retailing on the high street; wine marketing; and the role of new technology in empowering customer service employees. Each author has specifically considered the special theme of this issue, namely if the focus of their research has highlighted examples of truly “ethical” marketing, or if in fact the detailed analysis revealed just a Potemkin Village[1].

Most of the papers have been developed from those presented to the Ethical and Societal Issues in Marketing (Easi marketing) conference at Brunel University in May 2004. A further paper from this workshop on the subject of “de-shopping” (King and Dennis) will appear in the next edition of this journal. The contributions to this Special Issue can be briefly summarised as follows.

Peattie and Crane review the history of “green” marketing since the early 1990s in order to understand how the marketing discipline can make a more positive contribution towards greater sustainability. Their findings indicate that much of what has been commonly referred to as “green” marketing is in fact a Potemkin Village, and not underpinned by a true environmental philosophy. This explains why the anticipated “green revolution” in marketing has yet to materialise in the form of radically different products and markets.

O'Sullivan and Hogan both focus on marketing to children. O'Sullivan aims to enrich our understanding of debate and policy in this area by questioning the standard models of childhood implied within contemporary UK debate. His paper identifies a role for qualitative market research in establishing a more fully articulated account of childhood which extends beyond traditional assumptions based on positivist research. There are of course implications for marketers in gaining a better understanding of children's experience of advertising, and Hogan notes how many commercial organisations find difficulty in creating the right fit between their moral and business responsibilities. Marketers often have to weigh up their moral responsibilities towards many different stakeholders, and this becomes more complex when young children are targeted by advertisers. Based on recent qualitative research carried out with the leading toy companies in the UK, the paper discusses the fit between what toy companies say and do in terms of marketing to children and assesses whether this behaviour represents a sea change or is just another example of a Potemkin Village.

Memery, Megicks and Williams note that there has so far been limited investigation of the behaviour of consumers with regard to ethical business when making buying decisions. The paper reports the findings of a preliminary investigation into the influence of social responsibility on grocery shopping behaviour. It draws upon literature in the area of ethics, social responsibility, shopping and store image to determine factors that influence purchasing behaviour in this sector. An outline typology of key factors of concern to “socially responsible” consumers is developed. The findings suggest that three main areas of concern exist, relating to food quality and safety; human rights and ethical trading; and “green” issues, but this is perhaps a Potemkin Village. In fact shoppers make complex decisions about which shops to use and what products to buy based upon a trade off between ethical factors and standard retail purchasing decisions such as location, price and merchandise range.

Bekin, Carrigan and Szmigin consider another aspect of consumer behaviour in their participant observation study of “collective voluntarily simplified lifestyles” in the UK. Another Potemkin Village? The findings indicate that while some consumers found that voluntary simplicity re-instated their enjoyment of life, others found that certain goals remained unfulfilled and other unexpected issues arose, such as the challenges of mobility in the attainment of environmental goals. Although the communities studied here inhabited the extreme end of the voluntary simplicity spectrum, the authors demonstrate that their role in shaping the practices and attitudes of other consumers is clear.

Kent considers the ethical implications of erotic retailing in the context of shops selling sexually arousing products to women. The paper has considerable originality in its field, assessing the moral implications of access to sexual imagery and products in the High Street and examining the boundaries of its acceptability in society. The findings demonstrate a typology of erotic retailing in terms of the inter-relatedness of commercial opportunity with social and cultural developments in the late twentieth century. A philosophical answer to the ethics of erotic retailing is proposed, and the practical implications concern future opportunities for a rapidly expanding field of commercial activity and a solution to the ethical problem of “selling sex”. Richardson similarly explores the marketing of product that carries inherent ethical issues – wine. Concerns arise at every stage: product, production and, of course, marketing. Using the Wine industry as a case study, the author posits a novel model as a framework: the “ethical cube”.

Ayios and Harris investigate whether technological developments can be used in call centre environments to build lasting customer relationships beyond the usual focus on efficiency gains through automation which is the Potemkin Village of this field. The authors draw upon depth interviews to critically examine the ways in which caring attitudes and competent behaviour of call centre staff can contribute to building durable bases for customer trust. The findings demonstrate that a truly optimal application of technology can create a shared system whereby the knowledge of employees is applied in a positive way to build trusting relationships with customers. Multi-channel environments for customer interaction offer great potential for competitive advantage when the convenience of channel choice is creatively combined with competent and empathetic customer service.

We hope that you will enjoy reading these papers and that the issues discussed will provoke further debate and investigation in this very topical business area.

Charles Dennis and Lisa HarrisGuest Editors

Note1.“An impressive showy facade designed to mask undesirable facts” (www.wordsmith.org, 3/11/2003) [After Prince Potemkin, who erected cardboard villages to give an illusion of prosperity for impressing his lover Queen Catherine II on her visit to Ukraine and Crimea in 1787].

References

Davidson, K. (2003), The Moral Dimension of Marketing: Essays on Business Ethics, American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL.

Golin, A. (2003), Trust or Consequences: Build Trust Today or Lose Your Market Tomorrow, Amacom, New York, NY.

Rotfeld, H. (2005), “The cynical use of marketing to the unwitting consumer”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 2.

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