teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

A few weeks ago we posted the “Ethics of Sunscreen” – from Seth Godin – and a counterpoint as well.

My friend Stefanie Boyer (Bryant University) has pointed out some additional reading which will give you an even better background on this issue.  She pointed us to the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Sunscreen Hall of Shame.  EWG points out specific, deceptive claims being made by some brands — and also suggests better brands.  The site also includes a page with some surprising, scientifically backed claims, “Sunscreens Exposed:  9 Surprising Truths.”

I am using all this information as part of my “Is Marketing Good or Evil?” exercise in class tomorrow.  I ask students this question and then provide some examples on both sides of the debate.  Like most tools, marketing can be used for good or evil — it is really who uses it.  The question that continues to be debated is the extent to which regulation should be introduced to prevent abuse.  No answers, just useful questions for our students to consider.

Thank you Stefanie!

This infographic “The Sneaky Psychology of Advertising” (BuySellAds.com, June 20, 2011) provides some interesting examples of consumer and advertising research.  Several of the ideas originally appeared in academic outlets including the Journal of Consumer Research and Psychology Today.  You might find the results of some of the studies will make interesting examples to use when you teach consumer behavior or advertising.  Are some of these tactics unethical?  What do you think?

I also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps – I plan to take a look at student comments there before I teach advertising.  I think it will give me an idea about how students view advertising — you might like to do the same.  So come back to the student post in a few weeks to see if we have any action there.

Regular readers of T4Ps know that we enjoy Seth Godin’s pearls of wisdom.  In “The ethics of sunscreen,” Godin argues that consumers need regulation to protect them from greedy, self-interested companies.  He uses the behavior of firms that make sunscreen as his example — though he suggests it generalizes to all firms.   I think Godin’s arguments hold up best for credence goods (products for which the utility is almost impossible for a consumer to assess – even after consuming the product). For a contrary view, check out “The ethics of sunscreen” at Often Wrong Never in Doubt (June 27, 2011).  What is a firm’s responsibility?  What are consumers’ responsibilities?

The articles might stimulate a discussion of marketing ethics and regulation in the product or promotion units.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

Have you ever been felt stalked on the web?  We have found it downright creepy when ads start following us all around the web.  Recently Joe went to the iRobot website to get the latest on the Roomba which we have as a chapter opening case in our books.  For the next month, he kept seeing ads for the Roomba as he surfed the web.  It can get very creepy.

A previous T4Ps post “How Advertisers Use Internet Cookies to Track You” includes a video with some background on hot it works.  A recent article at PCWorld, “Help!  A Web Ad Is Stalking Me” (June 20, 2011) offers a lot of detail and insight on how it works.

We find that our students notice the “creepy ads” and sometimes ask about them.  Now after reading this article, we have a much better idea about how to answer the question.  I am not sure I will give my students this level of detail, but it will help me understand how things work.

The whole topic of behavioral targeting raises a lot of interesting questions.  Technology offers marketers many new targeting capabilities.  But just because they can do this, does it mean they should do this?  The article might help you lead a thoughtful discussion about the ethical implications of behavioral targeting.  The article could also provide you with useful background and examples to use when you cover segmentation and targeting as well as online advertising.

Here are two very powerful examples of how marketing that helps make the world a better place.  The first one (an ad created by Ogilvy, Dublin, Ireland) is especially hard to watch — but as you will see that is the point.  I don’t want to say anymore, because the ad and video explain themselves, and need no further introduction.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

As one of the world’s fastest growing economies, Brazil is a country our students should learn about.  Here we have a great combination of a video and article on Brazil — with a video showing a clever promotion to make customers aware that they can buy on credit.  Then, an article about potential problems for Brazil’s economy as more consumers use credit.

Brazil might want to learn from the experiences the United States has had with easy credit.  Apparently the Brazilian government is concerned — but many firms know that easy credit brings in customers. A recent Businessweek article, “Brazil’s New Middle Class Goes on a Spree” (May 12, 2011), describes how easy access to credit appeals to many Brazilians.  Unfortunately many of these consumers don’t understand what they are getting into with the sky high interest rates they are paying. Brazil’s government is putting in some controls, as it fears credit problems might drag down the economy.

You might start a discussion with the clever and seemingly innocuous video below. The short (0:54) video describes a campaign by Brazilian retailer Magazineluiza which targets elderly Brazilian consumers and informs them about credit through a crossword puzzle. After showing this in class, you could discuss the pros and cons of credit in an economy like Brazil’s. The article provides a nice background for your discussion.

This combination could work well in discussing international, ethics, public policy, promotion, and pricing.

I love Yelp.  My family just returned from vacation and we found Yelp enormously helpful in identifying restaurants and activities.  We would simply pull out the smartphone, click on Yelp, type in what we wanted to do (“restaurants seafood” or simply that we wanted to eat) — and a list of restaurants would appear in order of how close they were to our current position.  Plus, most of the restaurants included a collective rating and individual reviews.  Yelp steered us right and we discovered some great local places.  We also used TripAdvisor.com to help us identify activities and hotels before our vacation.  I rely a great deal on reviews in my buying process.

These sites rely on the wisdom of crowds — but are all these reviews “real”?  Apparently there is a growing market for posting fake reviews — good ones for your company and even bad ones for the competition.  Our text books include an ethics scenario addressing this exact issue. Sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor rely on our trust in these reviews — so they are concerned about this trend.  This article “A Rave, a Pan or Just a Fake?” (New York Times, May 21, 2011) gives you a bit more insight into how this works and how Yelp is trying to fight it.

In our books we discuss reviews in a new publicity section which covers a wide range of social media.  The article could provide some background when you discuss the ethics exercise in the first promotion chapters in our books — or when you cover reviews and social media.

Facebook’s image has always bounced between good and evil.  Privacy advocates have complained about the company.  It turned out that most users didn’t much care about privacy.  “The Social Network” did not paint a very pretty picture of founder Mark Zuckerberg.  Then this week we start off with a very favorable cover story in Bloomberg Businessweek that lauds the company’s COO and #2, see “Why Facebook Needs Sheryl Sandberg,” (May 12, 2011).  Bad timing for Sandberg, because now Facebook is getting more bad press for more bad actions “Facebook Admits It Hired PR Firm to Smear Google” (Adweek, May 12, 2011).

Yikes, lots of stuff here.  The Sheryl Sandberg story in BusinessWeek provides a neat profile of the COO and gets you up to date on some Facebook initiatives — like advertising and whether the firm should enter China.  The more interesting issue is the ethical lapse by Facebook.  It also makes you wonder about a PR firm that would take on (or maybe even suggest) such a tactic.  Neither looks very good here.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

Great scenario to use to discuss ethics in class.  How does a PR firm – even a big, well-known firm like Burson-Marsteller say no to Facebook?

I enjoy bringing social marketing examples to my classes.  Here is a useful definition for social marketing that I like:  applying marketing concepts to “bring about social change or achieve behavioral goals for a social good” (Fiehn, 2009)

Examples of social marketing educate students by showing them marketing concepts in a different context.  For marketing skeptics in your class, it demonstrates marketing in a positive light.  This example deals with drinking and driving — something relevant to many of our students.  The 1:44 video was developed by Oglivy Brazil.

It can be difficult to break into new markets — especially in the medical devices field where doctors usually like to stick with products they know.  A company called Biotronik found a way to generate significant market share in one particular hospital in southern Nevada.  In fact, while the company’s market share nationwide is about 5%, in this hospital it exceeds 95%.  Perhaps a great salesperson found a way to make Biotronik the preferred supplier and/or they have a superior device and this hospital is one of the few to recognize it.  Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that a few years ago Biotronik hired several of the hospital’s cardiologists as consultants — paying them as much as $5000 a month.

That, in a nutshell, is the background for a story in the New York Times, “Tipping the Odds for a Maker of Heart Implants” (April 2, 2011).  There is currently a federal investigation underway looking into Biotronik’s marketing and sales practices.

The article is quite long and will give you more background.  It might be an interesting example to discuss in class because you can probably imagine some gray areas.  It is probably important to have doctors testing products and offering insights.  At what point does this cross a line?