Ethics Of Marketing

At present, people pay much attention to the ethics of marketing, which has a positive influence on the operation of a company. It can not only decrease the cost of marketing and improve the reputation and image of a company but also establish closely cooperative connections with this company' s counterparts and strengthen its competitive capacity. The ethics of marketing stands on solid theoretical basis. We can expound it from humanity, economics, game theory or marketing. Oversea scholars propose three cardinal principles of the problem of right and wrong in the ethics of marketing, that is, the utility principle, authority principle and equity principle. Ancient Chinese took the theory of righteousness and benefit as the standard of ethical right and wrong. We are now developing our socialistic market economy, so, we must inherit the reasonable factors of the theory of righteousness and benefit. Moreover, we should also maintain the collectivistic principle and adjust ourselves to the collective benefit. We have to look after the benefits of individual, enterprise and nation and handle the relations among the three sides. Besides these, we should still hold that the people' s benefit is paramount to any other things and base our work on people' s benefit. This means we must do our work for the people, depend on the people and consider the benefit of the people. In brief, the people' s benefit is the starting and final point of our work. The foremost actual representation of the principle of supremacy of people' s benefit in marketing is the principle of customer' s supremacy. There are many factors that account for ethical problems in marketing, such as the factors of macroscopic environment and the factors of enterprise and individual. Chapter 4 will discuss them in detail. Based on this analysis, chapter 5 brings up the basic ethical norms for a marketer in his practical marketing activities. They are honesties, fairness, customer' s supremacy, mutual benefit and social responsibility. How can a marketer make a moral decision in his practical marketing activities? Chapter 6 investigates this problem and presents a prepositional scheme for the marketers to consult in their practices. Finally, this paper discusses systematically and completely how to strengthen the construction of marketing ethics and advances realistic and feasible strategies.