Marketing Ethics in Marketing BP and Toyota

Marketing

Ethics in Marketing

BP and Toyota have been in the news due to serious failures, which created significant safety risk and ultimately resulted in deaths as well as significant environmental damage in the case of BP with the exposition on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. In both cases there were internal failures. In these two cases there were notable failures which received a high level philosophy and have damaged the reputations of the firms. The causes of the safety problems may be divergent, but the marketing problem of the two firms are similar'; to guide the firm though a recovery and restore faith in the brand; unless this is achieved the firms are likely to suffer financial with lower sales.

If working for the marketing the department's responsibility is to support the firm's recovery, but this does not mean it should be undertaken in an unethical manner. The marketing department has the power to influence consumer's perceptions of the firm, with ethical marketing supporting not only the firms' interest, but also interests of consumers and the environment (Chapter 10). In the case of BP, with the damage that was caused and the high level of interest, it may be argued that the firm would be remiss if it ignored these, new items will have a greater credibility, and therefore influence consumers more than marketing messages (Kotler and Keller, 2011).

Marketing in this situation should deal with those issues directly and inform the consumers what they are doing to make things better, so that the firm can be seen as changing and becoming more responsible. Johnson and Johnson demonstrated the way a firm can survive a disaster which results in deaths, following the tampering with their drug Tylenol (Stewart and Paine, 2011). Johnson and Johnson survived by acting in an ethical manner, and informing the public followed by winning back their trust, despite many market commentators believing it would be the end of the brand (Stewart and Paine, 2011). There was a difference in the Tylenol case; it was not Johnson and Johnsons fault, but the lessons can still be applied.

Instead of using entertainment as the basis for initial advertising, the firm could use a model of informing, showing how and why improvements have been made, this would help to restore faith in the brand, and then allow a more positive image to be built up. However, for both ethical purposes, as well as to ensure trust is retained, it is necessary to ensure the messages are accurate (Chapter 10).

By restoring the firms image the marketing department is acting ethically, not only are they supporting the firms shareholders, but other primary stakeholders that rely n the firm to a living, such as employees and stakeholders, and by ensuring that the message are accurate they are also serving the consumers and supporting a long-term recovery.

Question 2

Marketing to children can be controversial, especially younger children who due to their psychological developmental stage find it difficult to tell the difference between marketing messages and factual information (Cross, 2002). As children are not often consumers, especially for essential products such as breakfast cereal the aim of the marketers is usually to create a desire, which will result in child nagging the parent to make a purchase (Kotler and Keller, 2011). This nag value can be effective, as parents will be motivated to satisfy their children's desires to make the purchases (Cross, 1992). This may be seen as a manipulation of a child to influence a parent. However, the advertising industry maintain a position that to be ethical, any advertising to children should be honest, but that parents also have a responsibility to monitor and control consumption (Chapter 10).