Principles of Marketing - Is Marketing Ethical?

Is Marketing ethical?

Principles of Marketing

Bruno Benjamin Berton

Lindenwood University

To define if marketing is ethic or not, I believe that everyone should share the same culture and values, then starting with that premise we can decide if the activities on marketing are ethical or not. Therefore, not all people see the issue of marketing and ethics alike, because not all of us have been educated – cultures, and values. in the same way, that is why for some people, some activities are considered ethically correct and for others it's the opposite, that's why I think marketing depends on the place and moment to decide if it's ethical or not.

In the past, so many companies had face problems, not only ethics, with the environment but also with the society which surrounds them. One of the biggest companies in the world is Chevron. Between 1972 and 1993, Chevron (at that time Texaco) poured 18 billion gallons of toxic water into the tropical forests of Ecuador without any repair, destroying the livelihoods of local farmers and making indigenous populations ill. Chevron has also polluted in the US, in 1998, Richmond (California), they sued Chevron for illegal dumping without going through sewage treatment, contaminating local water supplies, ditto in New Hampshire in 2003. Chevron was responsible for the death of several Nigerians who protested the company for their presence and exploitation of the Nigerian delta. Chevron paid the local militia, known for its human rights abuses, to crush the protests, and even provided them with helicopters and ships. The military opened fire on the demonstrators, then burned their villages to the ground. (Brainz, s.f.)

Another company that faced a huge problem is De Beers. This company spares no expense, and finances support and creates authentic guerrillas and dictatorships of terror to be able to continue obtaining through the exploitation of children and adults, the precious stone. In Botswana, DeBeers has been blamed for the "cleaning" of the land where the diamonds are mined, including the forcible transfer of the indigenous peoples who had lived there for thousands of years. The government allegedly cut off the water supply, threatened them, tortured them and publicly hanged the resisters. (Brainz, s.f.)

A company that I do not like is Phillip Morris. It is known that smoking cigarettes cause cancer in smokers, as well as congenital disabilities in unborn children if the mother smokes during pregnancy. Cigarette smoke contains 43 known carcinogens and more than 4,000 chemicals, including carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, nicotine, and arsenic. Nicotine, the main psychoactive chemical in tobacco, has proven to be a psychological addiction. Smoking increases blood pressure, affects the central nervous system and constriction of blood vessels. Cigarette butts are one of the primary pollutants that smokers routinely shed; slow to degrade. Many of these filters make their way into the soil or water, where their chemical products behave badly. (Brainz, s.f.)

The company that surprises me the most is Coca Cola because the prestige that the company has and how worldwide this company is. The favorite drink of the world or "the milk of capitalism," accumulates demands and sanctions in various countries derived from serious pollution, bad labor practices and the use of unauthorized waters.

In the production phase, the company uses almost three liters of water per liter of finished product. The discarded waters constitute pollutants, which the multinational deposits in protected places, as happened in Colombia, situation for which, it was fined last August, by the District Department of the Environment, Mayoy Mayoralty of Bogotá, when it was demonstrated that it had unloaded its waste in the Capellania wetland, in the Fontibón area. The fact is considered as an attack against a field of ​​importance and ecological protection. The process for contamination of the Chaplaincy Wetland has its origin in the expiration of the permit of shedding granted to the multinational for five years and the non-authorization of the Secretary of the Environment to renew this permit. Subsequently, through technical visits, the state of the Coca Cola sewer network and the realization of industrial discharges, evidently not authorized, were verified.

A very similar situation occurred in India in 2005, where around a thousand protesters marched to ask to close the plant near Varanasi, they were certain that all communities near Coca Cola bottling plants suffer from the lack and contamination of its floors and groundwater. Toxicological analyzes recorded the presence of high percentages of banned pesticides such as DDT and as "good neighbors" distributed their industrial waste to Mehdigani farmers with the argument that they served for "fertilizer" The result is that today the soils are sterile.

And as if that were not enough, the drink in question, along with consuming water in excess does not provide any nutritive element, on the contrary, because it contains high concentrations of sugar, it is one of the main contributors of obesity that increasingly affects our third world populations, generating, on the other hand, dental problems. And the effect of "quenching thirst" is achieved using phosphoric acid. (Acosta, s.f.)

But on the other hand, there are so many companies, that take cares of the environment and on the ethics of the society they operate. When facing an increasingly responsible consumer, companies also face the challenge of increasing the transparency of their good practices and the ethical management of their business model, so that there are more and more tools that facilitate an informed purchasing decision. (Correspensables, s.f.)