Issues for Concern

Marketing ethics Definition Systematic study of how moral standards are applied to marketing decisions, behaviours, and institutions.’ (Murphy, 1997, p. 261)

Issues for concern

The dependence effect In an age of big business, it is unrealistic to think of markets of the classical kind. Big businesses set their own terms in the marketplace, and use their combined resources for advertising programmes to support demand for their own products. As a result, individual preferences actually reflect the preferences of entrenched corporations, a "dependence effect", and the economy as a whole is geared to irrational goals.[3] In The New Industrial State Galbraith argues that economic decisions are planned by a private-bureaucracy, a technostructure of experts who manipulate marketing and public relations channels. This hierarchy is self serving, profits are no longer the prime motivator, and even managers are not in control. Because they are the new planners, corporations detest risk, require steady economic and stable markets. They recruit governments to serve their interests with fiscal and monetary policy, for instance adhering to monetarist policies which enrich money-lenders in the City through increases in interest rates. While the goals of an affluent society and complicit government serve the irrational technostructure, public space is simultaneously impoverished. Galbraith paints the picture of stepping from penthouse villas onto unpaved streets, from landscaped gardens to unkempt public parks. In Economics and the Public Purpose (1973) Galbraith advocates a "new socialism" as the solution, nationalising military production and public services such as health care, introducing disciplined salary and price controls to reduce inequality. Subliminal advertising

If an advertisement (or advertising campaign) leaves the consumer with an impression and/or belief different from what would normally be expected if the consumer had reasonable knowledge, and that impression and/or belief is factually untrue or potentially misleading, then deception is said to exist (Gardner, 1975, pp.40-46) Contributory negligence on the consumers side? “I want to wear this brand because everyone else does,” is a typical response reported by the researchers.*Augur, Devinney, Louviere & Burke, 2004.