Business Marketing Ethics

Business Marketing Ethics:

Snuff Out Joe Camel

Business Marketing Ethics: Snuff out Joe Camel

Reynolds is acting in an unethical and socially irresponsible manner

R.J. Reynolds' use of Joe Camel smacks of "target marketing" toward children. The use of a "cool" cartoon figure surrounded by admiring friends and an attractive girlfriend seems tailor-made for enticing children, who are drawn to cartoon figures and crave acceptance and "coolness" at least as much as adults crave acceptance and "coolness." The targeting of children for an "adults-only" product is particularly reprehensible because children are a recognized vulnerable group; the vulnerability of children is the reason for so many laws treating them as "infants" who cannot decide for themselves. In the face of our society's treatment of children as a vulnerable group that must be protected, Joe Camel is an anti-social use of marketing.

Marketing to children is particularly harmful when that marketing encourages smoking. An important reason for the attack on Joe Camel is the fact that if children get addicted, they are likelier to carry that addiction into adulthood, according to the "Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids." Given the overall reduction in smoking due to education about the health effects of smoking, the tobacco companies need to create more and more addicts to sustain and build business, which is certainly enhanced by cultivating tobacco addiction in vulnerable children who will carry their addiction into adulthood. That child-to-adult addiction carries a terrible social price: smoking is the addictive cause of more yearly deaths in the U.S. than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined, according to the "Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids." Consequently, R.J. Reynolds' reference to other brands such as Ford, Chevrolet, McDonalds, and Coca Cola, which do not regularly kill nearly as many Americans, is a weak appeal when faced with the impacts of smoking on health.

Finally, assuming for argument's sake that R.J. Reynolds did not initially target children, Joe Camel apparently did create hordes of child-addicts and RJ. Reynolds knew or should have known that and reacted as an ethical company. R.J. Reynolds is a wealthy company that probably keeps careful track of who smokes its cigarettes and an ethical company would have stopped using Joe Camel after realizing that: the percentage of smokers under 18 who smoke Camels has risen from less than 1% to nearly 33% since the company began using Joe Camel; nearly one-quarter of Camel's sales are to underage smokers; kids smoke the most heavily advertised brands, and Camel has been the second most advertised brand since 1988. Rather than "pulling the plug" on Joe Camel in the face of all that information, R.J. Reynolds was apparently secretly thrilled with the child-addicts and kept using Mr. Camel quite heavily, even when attorneys' general from more than 27 states petitioned the FTC to sue the company and ban Joe Camel.

2. How my decision will affect the stakeholders of R.J. Reynolds and which stakeholders should be pleased first and second