Marketing Laws and Ethics - Case Study Example

TOPIC MARKETING LAWS AND ETHICS All through our lives, we live in communication with other people, constantly trying to make favorable impressions, and thus become real advertising specialists. Advertising is generally defined as multifaceted form of communication, mutual influence and interactions. It is communication for communications. Throughout history, social responsibility and marketing ethics are inherently controversial, and years of research continue to present conflicts and challenges for marketers on the value of a socially responsible approach to marketing activities (Crane 2001). Marketing has become an authority in the society. It shows people the way to become models; images they see in various advertisements. The marketer tells us; buy it, use it. They also tell us; we can buy success, happiness and love with the advertised products, service and brands so that consumer also buys the life-style with the product. The advertisements have become the role of educators and family. While watching these advertisements, consumer compares the life he is watching and his own life and finds his life ordinary and meaningless. Because of this reason, the advertisements became an imitated model ethic is known as moral values and plays a role as social rules in a society. In today's world, in marketing, through advertisements the messages are given with help of the cultural differences, social class differences; also using color differences as a tool, so it is one of the biggest arguments of ethic. The most definite dilemma of modern-day advertising is its manipulation on the individual and societal growth, significance in formation of people's values in rapidly globalizing world. At the same time, mounting globalization process grounds seriously the query about the social accountability of business need essential deliberation of long-term benefit of consumers and society as a whole. It is important to note the reciprocity of advertising technological development process and scrutinizing of human rights and standards of living in the society. In other words, transformation in one way requires immediate change in other (Harris 2001). The world of advertising, made up of advertisers, agencies, the media and the various specialized services, constitutes an environment which is in a constant state of flux; examples include new marketing and advertising techniques, changing markets, changing consumer requirements, new products, new media and a constant turnover of staff. As well as the whole commerce industry, marketing has its own ethical problems. Several marketing experts or their representatives have deliberately confirmed and implemented different activities, assertions or set of laws concerning the requirement that marketing people believe ethics regulations and values, so that they become much more responsible towards the members of society (Brassington & Pettitt 2003). Most controversial cases in the legal system are the discrimination cases which base their allegations on race, color, gender, sexual orientation,national origin and religion, age. For years the mainstream media has cleanly pushed the idea that being darker as a person of color is thought to be inferior. Discrimination has diffused onto a wider massive scale. In an undeniably capitalist society, leading marketers and entrepreneurs use subtle suggestive means to accomplish their selfish, profitable motives. As in the case of promotional campaign of the world's largest cosmetics firm, based in France, L'Oreal, which specializes in perfumes, beauty aids, and related products. The ad-campaign featuring pop-star Beyonce Knowles for this cosmetics giant shows that all is not well with the face of its promotion. The company was accused of whitening Beyonce Knowles who has been the L'Oral Paris brand ambassador since 2001. The contract signed between the cosmetics company and the singer in 2001, was worth 2.4m ($4.7m) for five years. The contract stipulated that the singer had to work 10 days each year. The contract also stated that she maintain "approximately the same physical appearance and health", and inform L'Oral of "any radical changes to her hair". The company also has the right to check Beyonce's hair, giving a prior notice of two weeks. In the September 2008 issue of Elle magazine, an advertisement published by L'Oral Paris Company was accused of the fact that they changed Ms Knowles' skin tone or features for Fria hair color. The campaign became controversial when Beyonce's picture showed her complexion in a lighter tone than her natural color and reddish-blonde hair. It is believed that the singer's skin tone was digitally altered for the new L'Oreal print ad. These promotional pictures for Fria hair color appeared in various other glossy fashion magazines, such as, Allure and Essence (Carey 2008). It can be clearly seen that the advertisement was heavily photoshopped, although L'Oreal deny it. While photoshopping a model beyond all recognition is in itself nothing new especially in such a racially-charged environment as the UK; indeed, the contrast is easily visible even with L'Oreal's own previous advertisements with her. The consequences of this ad are to some extent different, but still offensive. By portraying Beyonce in a lighter skin color than her natural tone, L'Oral has managed to entail that women with darker skin are not very attractive and therefore prove to be less profitable. Even though, L'Oreal being a firm supposedly in the image industry, this is an amazingly unintelligent thing to do, and any negative effects on their brand would be rightly deserved, resulting in a strong damage to their brand equity. Hence the resulting furor in the UK over the advertisement is arguably justified (Brinkmann 2006; 2007). The figure projected in any advertisement attempting to sell a cosmetic product is illusory. If L'Oreal is selling mascara, the lashes are fakes and in most hair ads the models are wearing hair extensions. Every single image is photoshopped, which is against the law of ethics as it is deceptive and misleading for the consumers. L'Oreal's values and guiding principles are formalized in L'Oreal's Code of Business Ethics. It emphasizes on respect for the law, respect for the individual, respect for the consumer, respect for the environment, partnership with customers, distributors and suppliers and principles of loyalty and integrity. Even though, L'Oreal presumably claims to respect law and individuality of the society and its people but it fails to do so because not only their advertisements prove to be racially discriminating but by portraying idealized images of celebrities, the audience too often come away feeling diminished by thought that they could never really look like them (Keenan & Riches 2007). L'Oreal asserts to follow all ethical values; including telling the truth and offering products of value that do what they claim in their communication. But this was proven wrong, when the company was reprimanded by the British Advertising Standards Authority last year for claiming, in a campaign featuring the actor Penlope Cruz, that one of its products could lengthen eyelashes when the actress wore false eyelashes for the advertisements. The main theory behind the marketing strategy of L'Oreal is based on the ethical theory of subjectivism which states that moral attitudes are merely a matter of personal taste. Attitudes are invariably regarded as group attitudes thus providing the social nature of morality. What is right and wrong is relative to the circles in which one moves, to the environmental forces around one and to considerations of time as well as place. The Beyonce-L'Oreal controversy is not the first of its kind as there have been previous claims in advertising and litigation for racial discrimination in L'Oreal. Firstly, in May 2007, L'Oral was one of several cosmetic manufacturers ordered by the in Australia to withdraw advertising regarding the wrinkle removal capabilities of their products. Then in July 2007, the Garnier division of L'Oreal and an external employment agency, Adecco one of its subsidiaries, Ajilon were fined 30,000 for recruitment practices that excluded non-white women from promoting its shampoo, "Fructis Style". It was found that Garnier ordered the recruitment agency to employ only young, white females for the promotional ads. The code exercised, which was presented in a faxed memo was "BBR" connotated "bleu-blanc-rouge" suggesting the colors of the French flag; blue, white and red. The code is a racially discriminating term applied to eliminate Asian, Arab and black women. L'Oral is reported as saying the decision was incomprehensible, and would challenge the measure in court. Also in July 2007, the British Advertising Standards Authority rapped L'Oral for a television advert on its "Telescopic" mascara, featuring Penlope Cruz, stating "it will make your eyelashes 60% longer." In fact, it only made the lashes look 60% bigger, by separating and thickening at the roots and by thickening the tips of the lashes. They did not make any mention of the model wearing false eyelashes. L'Oreal should adhere to all applicable marketing laws and regulations and embodying high ethical standards in choices they make. Their marketing practitioners must recognize that they not only serve their enterprise but also responsible to embrace the highest ethical norms and values towards society. Their marketing communication about their products should not be deceptive or misleading (Crane 2001). Furthermore, it is clearly defined in the marketing ethics that companies should value individual differences even as they avoid stereotyping customers or depicting demographic group, that is, gender, race, sexual orientation in a negative or dehumanizing way in the promotion of their products. In order to facilitate the company's image, L'Oreal should take up Unilever's course of marketing. Their ad campaign for dove gives the mission statement that normal is the new beauty. This campaign aims to change the traditional definition of beauty by telling the women to be happy just the way they are. Also by featuring real, confident women of all types (not actresses or models). It featured oversized, outstanding, older women, young women and heavily freckled women of all ethnicities and proportions. Company should make a commitment to common set of shared standards worldwide. They must not lower its ethical standards to compete effectively. It is not enough to distribute a written document of codes and ethics as it does not ensure ethical behavior until a total corporate commitment is made. L'Oreal should create a self-regulated culture based on integrity, respect and sincerity with the society, not a culture based on racial discrimination and false commitments (Chang 1998). Since the basic aim of any company whether it be L'Oreal or any other is to satisfy consumers' needs, therefore, marketing managers often take it for granted that their actions are ethical. Their marketing policy is based on the utilitarian approach to ethics. It states that the ethical reliability of the campaign does not depend on the methods employed, but on the result of the persuasion. Marketing strategies are tolerable if it brings good results, that is, if human happiness or satisfaction is increased. Similar is the case of L'Oreal-Beyonce advertisement, where lightning the singer's skin tone brought the required popularity, even though, it breached the code of ethics and morality of the society (Ferrell; Greshman & Fraedrich 1989). Progressively more, organizations are acting in response to the need to offer company strategies and guiding principles to assist their managers' deal with questions of marketing ethics. Of course even the finest guiding principle cannot determine all the complicated moral judgments that individuals and firms must make. But there are some doctrines that marketers can decide amid. One standard affirms that such area under discussion should be determined by the free market and legal structure. A second, and more enlightened principle, puts responsibility not on the system but in the hands of individual companies and managers. Each firm and marketing manager must wok out a philosophy of socially responsible and ethical behavior (Fraedrich 1996). According to the concept of societal marketing, managers must look ahead of what is legal and allowable and develop standards based on personal integrity, corporate conscience, and log-term consumer welfare. In the contemporary world, businesses need to have moral responsibilities that go beyond meeting the needs of their customers and shareholders (Chryssides & Kaler 1993). Consumer ethics is another dimension to marketing where it seeks to describe, understand and praise or criticize consumers, for their behavior. In the mainstream marketing, collectively consumers have the potential to wield considerable power, and when mobilized, they can sometimes combine to wield it very effectively through boycotts or other forms of campaign to promote discriminating advertisements. Consumer behavior and marketing exist in a close and interdependent relationship, with each shaping the other, and it is logical to view consumer ethics and marketing ethics as highly interdependent, too (Brinkmann 2004). Even though, companies are institutionalizing ethics, ethical violations continue unceasingly, causing questions as to where ethical emphasis is going wrong. This clearly suggests that firms need not only the intellect but also have the will to do the right thing in the face of temptation. Here the question arises as to why take the moral high road. This can be answered by the fact that ethical behavior proves to be profitable in the long run. However, such a pragmatic consideration is not enough to stimulate an individual of ethical character. Being an ethical being one will choose the moral course of action in spite of personal gains. Companies should commit themselves to conduct its business on a high ethical plane based on honesty, integrity, and fair commercial competition. This code of ethical conduct applies both to the firm and consumers. It is intended to provide a clear understanding of the ethical principles of business conduct expected of all individuals. Conformity to these principles is imperative to the truthfulness and constant well being of the company. These set of code are designed to embody rules regarding individual and peer responsibilities, as well as responsibilities towards the employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders, the public and other stakeholders, and include goals in furthering honesty and ethical conduct, including the ethical handling o actual or apparent conflicts of interest between personal and professional relationships. In the present day, all businesses are under high levels of inspection and are held to increasingly higher levels of accountability. Therefore, the marketing management of all organizations should reaffirm its strong commitment that company's business practices be conducted in accordance with the highest professional, ethical, legal and moral standards. (Word Count: 2302) Reference: 1. Brassington, F. and Pettitt, S. 2003. Principles of Marketing. India: Pearson Prentice Hall 2. Brenkert, G. G. 2002. Marketing Ethics: Foundations of Business Ethics. New York: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated 3. Brinkmann, J. 2007. Responsibility sharing: Elements of a framework for understanding insurance business ethics. Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations, 7 (2) 85-113 4. Brinkmann, J. & Lentz, P. 2006. Understanding insurance customer dishonesty: Outline of a moral-sociological approach, Journal of Business Ethics, 66: 177-195 5. Brinkmann, J. 2004. Looking at consumer behavior in a moral perspective, Journal of Business Ethics, 51 (2): 129-141 6. Carey, I. 2008. Light skinned controversy Beyonce Knowles-L'Oreal . 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