Ethical Marketing: Koffum Filters Case Study

In today’s world marketing is a crucial issue. Marketing is related to the activities which are very much essential to conduct the overall business. Marketing is making by defeating a company through satisfying many. Most people think of marketing only as selling and advertising. But today marketing must be understood not in the old sense of making safe ‘telling and selling’ but in the new sense of satisfying customer needs. (Zatakia, 2007). If the marketer understands consumer needs develops products and services that provide superior customer value and prices, distributes and promotes them effectively these products will sell easily (Kotler, n.d., p.5). So the presses by which companies create value for customers build story customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return is called marketing. Broadly defined ‘‘marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and organizations obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging value with others.’’ (Kotler and Armstrong, 2005).

Business is increasingly challenged to consider ethics when it makes a decision. Ethics is the answer to the question of what is “right and wrong, fairness, justice, truthfulness, and similar ideas dealing with morality and rightness” (Schnarrer, 2004, p.11). Individuals who live in those societies learn from childhood what is considering ethical and unethical. Religious institutions, parents, teachers, and others instill a sense of fairness and justice and general ethical behavior. As a result, man’s powers develop a strong sense of ethics which then acts as one’s conscience when faced with questions of right and wrong. In addition to individual conscience, societies spell out their ethics in laws, customs, and religious beliefs (Schnarrer, 2004, p.10). ”When questions arise there community standards are then used to sort out right from wrong and to define what is ethical or unethical. Ethical problems in business arise when business practice deviates from the society’s notions of what is right and moral” (Schnarrer, 2004, p.10 & Davis and Fredrick, 2004).

When business interacts so often and so closely with the society a shared community of interest develops between a company and its surrounding social groups, when this occurs corporate stakeholders are created. Corporate stakeholders are all the groups affected by the corporation’s decisions and policies and simultaneously stakeholders will be treated as positive when the interaction among factors will be fair, ethical, and logical.

Marketing ethics is the field of applied ethics that dealt with the morality or principles of marketing practices. Here ethics is related to advertising ethics and promotion ethics.

Ethical Marketing refers to ethics-oriented marketing. That means Ethical marketing is that sort of marketing which does not violate the ongoing rules and regulations of a country, does not hamper the society, never attack the environment and think about right, wrong, and moral aspect as well.

The case study denotes a serial of work and which are some who related to ethics and that affects business directly or indirectly. Here it is visible that every man has a specific choice that is backed by his/her expertise. Then a creative and efficient thing may be generated for the business organization. But there may have some fault due to the lacking of the surrounding information. Though there may have some fault, it must be recoverable and rectifiable. Here the creative people’s ethical issues are also noticeable. So it may refer that when one person will do something for his/her organization then it should be organized by himself firstly then the society, legal system as well as the environment.

In the case study, noticeable stakeholders are-

1. Advocates: Here, the advocates are taking their position against any sort of it legal issues. As Olivia has not followed the rules regulation of advertising at the first time then the advocates were active in the general issue.
2. Social Community: Here, the social community means the social workers who their position to a major interest of the society. The social workers think about the common interest of the society rather than their personal interest. In the case study, the social community strengthened its position by criticizing Olivia’s campaign as it is bad for the young generation.
3. Young Generation: Olivia’s target market was the young generation people. And as the ultimate target market, Olivia tried to perusable the young generation to get involved in smoking and the young people did so. That means the young generation placed a vital & crucial rule in the campaign.
4. General People: When the company launches fast food for the lower level income people then they were involved.
5. Employee: The people who are rendering service in favor of the organization are also the stakeholders of the organization.

From the study some ethical issues that are remarkable are-

1. Assigning work: It is shown that Olivia was interested in advertising but first she was assigned or recruited as the accountant. So it seems to be unethical due to his expert knowledge of Olivia.
2. Persuade to smoke: If it is thought from stakeholders’ viewpoint then it is unethical to persuade people to smoke. But from the business view, it would be all right.
3. Discrimination in remuneration: When Olivia wanted to join in the first food section then she was offered only so those dollar interest of so thousand dollars in the smoke and mirror company. It is unethical as become the person is the same but remuneration is different.
4. Work condition: When authority gave the binding to do work in smoke and mirror company for two years to Olivia. Then it was unethical.
5. Target market: At the period when cigarette companies target young people who are 18-24 years old to smoke was unethical.

Young people are like a flower to everybody. And this flower should be kept in such a way that we can have enough smell to diffuse our society. It is the morality of everyone to bring out a good smell from these flowers, but not the bad smell. In this case study, it has been observed that Olivia made a campaign for Smoke & Mirror, a cigarette company, which gives a message ‘be unintentionally cool’. And this campaign proved to be a huge success for the company, but on the other hand, it has raised some alarming ethical issues.

• The company can not make people buy cigarettes by force.
• The company should not insist young people buy cigarettes.
• Anything harmful to society should not be adopted.

Since marketing ethics is on top of the mind of a good marketer, so it is his or her obligation not to impose anything harmful on the human being. However, the campaign made by Olivia was criticized by the social advocates. They stated the advertising as a misleading and reckless one.

Yes, the stakeholders view the ethical issue(s) of the cigarette campaign in a different way. Such as;

1. Young generations support this campaign rather considering the ethical conflict;
2. Social advocates criticized the message of the campaign;
3. They do not support the campaign for encouraging smoking;
4. Legislators do not accept this type of advertising as it is extravagant and illegal, and
5. Employee having ideology like Olivia does not feel comfortable anymore with this sort of work.

Though Koffum Filters wanted to appoint Olivia in their cigarette division as she already has shown enormous growth in Smoke & Mirrors co., ethical marketing does not support it. Because ethical marketing ensures the company’s employees’ satisfaction relating to work. So, the company should let Olivia go for her interesting work that is in the low-cost, nutritious snacks division.

By reading the case everyone can be able to assess the situation. Here the assessment may be-

1. Employee Satisfaction: Job satisfaction is a vital issue. But here Olivia was not justified in his job. Because she was interested to do work advertising but she was not assigned to do so. So everyone should think about the pressure. Finally, it can be said that the job must have to match the employee’s interest.
2. Internal Marketing: In an organization, the company should give emphasis on the freeness flexibility in some special areas. If the interaction between superior and sub-ordinate exist then the work efficiency will be developed.
3. Target Market: Before targeting the market the company should think about the related ethical issues. Here company should think about the target people’s status and product pattern, e.g., Olivia targeted the 18-24 years young as a target market of cigarettes which was not fully ethical.
4. Not interesting the ideology: Here the organization should honor the employee ideology. Moreover, the employee should not compel to do work against their ideology when the employee will get a chance to establish his/her ideology then they will be dedicated to their organization and as an ultimate result, it would be marvelous.
5. Current business portfolio: Company should give emphasis on the business portfolio. Though it is important organizations should not discriminate against the same employee due to the business portfolio.

In the article written on “Tobacco Firms Used Financial ties to weaken the market for anti-smoking Product” the following things can be assessed;

1. Tobacco companies follow the acquisition process of anti-smoking products to hold their market share.
2. The tobacco company earns profit both from selling tobacco and drugs to break the tobacco addiction.
3. They drive the people towards the dilemma.
4. Such financial ties and conflicts of interest denoted them as fraudulent activist in the marketing field.

The issue should be considered under the ethical consideration. Because marketing strategy followed by the tobacco companies harming the society by encouraging buying cigarette. And anything harmful for the society is an unethical marketing practice.

Tobacco companies should perform the marketing program by not emphasizing directly for smoking. They can give free sample to the customers but they should not make it publicly available through print media, e-media.

1. Conducting campaign that gives a massage “smoking kills you gradually”.
2. Setting skimming pricing policy.
3. Increasing rate of tax on the tobacco industries.
4. Imposing fine on advertising relating to smoking, if it makes too much curiosity.

These initiatives help the tobacco industries to do their work in favor of the critiques, social advocates and social community.

Referecnes

Davis, Keith., and Fredrick, G. William. (2004), Business and Society. 5th ed.

Kotler, Philip. (n.d.). Marketing Managing Profitable: Customer Relationships. Web.

Kotler, Philip., and Armstrong. (2005). Big in Japan: internet adds a new dimension to customer organization: JTB, Nippon Travel Agency and Kinki-Nippon Tourist learned a new style of marketing. Journal of Strategic Direction. Vol. 21. Iss. 4., 19 – 21.

Schnarrer, M. Johannes. (2004). The civil society between freedom and democracy. Web.

Zatakia, Ekta. (2007). Social responsibility n ethics in marketing. Web.