Page 107 - Foundations of Marketing

74 Part 1 | Strategic Marketing and Its Environment

Table 3.3 Ethical Issues in Marketing

Issue
Category Examples

Product • Failing to disclose risks associated with a product
• Failing to disclose information about a product’s function, value, or use
• Failing to disclose information about changes in the nature, quality, or
size of a product
Distribution • Failing to live up to the rights and responsibilities associated with
channel member roles
• Manipulating product availability
• Using coercion to force other intermediaries to behave in a certain way

Promotion • False or misleading advertising
• Using manipulative or deceptive sales promotions, tactics, and publicity
• Offering or accepting bribes in personal selling situations

Pricing • Price fi xing
• Predatory pricing
• Failing to disclose the full price of a purchase
© Cengage Learning

a practice known as cause-related marketing . Target, for example, contributes significant
resources to education through its Take Charge of Education program. Customers using a
Target REDcard can designate a specific school to which Target donates 1 percent of their
53
total purchase. A Cone study revealed that 85 percent of respondents have a more positive
54
image of companies that support causes they care about. Some companies are beginning to
extend the concept of corporate philanthropy beyond financial contributions by adopting a
strategic philanthropy approach , the synergistic use of organizational core competencies
and resources to address key stakeholders’ interests and achieve both organizational and social
benefits. Strategic philanthropy involves employees; organizational resources and expertise;
and the ability to link these assets to the concerns of key stakeholders, including employ-
ees, customers, suppliers, and society in general. Strategic philanthropy involves both finan-
cial and nonfinancial contributions to stakeholders (employee time, goods and services, and
company technology and equipment, as well as facilities), but it also benefits the company.
Salesforce.com, for example, believes in the benefits of strategic philanthropy so strongly that
it incorporates community service into its corporate culture. Salesforce.com allows employees
to take up to 1 percent of their time to volunteer in their communities, it sets aside 1 percent of
the company’s capital for the Salesforce.com Foundation, and it donates or discounts licenses
of its CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software to thousands of nonprofits world-
55
wide. The synergistic use of organizational core competencies and resources to address key
stakeholders’ interests achieve both organizational and social benefits.
Although social responsibility may seem to be an abstract ideal, managers make decisions
cause-related marketing
The practice of linking products related to social responsibility every day. To be successful, a business must determine what
to a particular social cause on customers, government regulators, and competitors, as well as society in general, want or
an ongoing or short-term basis expect in terms of social responsibility. Two major categories of social responsibility issues
are sustainability and consumerism.
strategic philanthropy
approach The synergistic
use of organizational core Sustainability
competencies and resources
to address key stakeholders’ One of the more common ways marketers demonstrate social responsibility is through pro-
interests and achieve both orga- grams designed to protect and preserve the natural environment. Most Fortune 500 companies
nizational and social benefits now engage in recycling activities and make significant efforts to reduce waste and conserve

Copyright 2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.