Question

With regards to unethical marketing practices, David Ingram (Examples of Legal But Unethical Situations in Business) writes:

Marketing tactics can walk a fine line between persuasion and manipulation, and this is another area where subjective ethics come into play heavily. Some marketing tactics can take advantage of uneducated segments of the population, which can be perfectly legal while being scorned throughout the marketplace. For example, before the Credit Card Act of 2009, banks could lure teens into opening credit accounts with promises of financial freedom, regardless of the teens' ability to repay the high-interest debts.

Other tactics can take advantage of harmful addictions by eliciting emotional responses. Casino commercials showing elated winners throwing money into the air is a prime example of this in a world where people can ruin their lives with a gambling addiction. Still other tactics can take advantage of people in need by luring them into predatory services, such as high-cost loans with daily interest compounding.

Provide at least two different examples of your own (you can search the Internet to find cases) that exemplify unethical marketing practices. Describe each case and explain why the marketing practice was unethical.

Answer 1

There are different examples of unethical marketing practices. Organization & companies use these strategy to promote their products but unfortunately in most of the cases the startegy doesn't work.

Here are two examples of unethnic marketing.

1. Diet Coke- With the increasing trend these days many companies are introducing differenet beverages. The cocacola company also introduced such a product "Diet Coke". It was claimed that diet coke reduces the body weight & mantains a good health but actually it was found that it caused cancer to the animals.

The company hired many celebrities for the promotion but the product failed. This is a better example of unethical marketing.

2. Toms- Tom is online site which sells apparels & many usefull items. Tom advertised their product in such a way that people got attracted towards it but eventualy the product was not of good quality & also the product price was nor upto mark. So this is another example of unethical marketing as the consumers are fooled by giving fake promised.