A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Alfred University Unethical

A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Alfred University Unethical Marketing: Why the Bad Works so Good by Julie Canova In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Alfred University Honors Program May 2016 Under the Supervision of: Chair: Amy B Rummel, Professor of Marketing Committee Members: Cole A Racho, Adjunct Professor of Marketing Pamela D Schultz, Professor of Communication Studies 1 Abstract Since the early 2000s, “business ethics scandals” have risen enormously. More so, many researchers believe that marketing ethics was directly involved in many of these scandals (Murphy, Laczniak, Bowie, & Klein, 2005). Unethical marketing is a large segment of marketing that is surprisingly used by many companies. The research and data collected for this project emphasizes that factors such as gender, age, and the “ethical conscience” of people effects their personal views toward particular advertisements that utilize unethical marketing tactics. In addition, this research theorizes that unethical marketing strategies generally have positive effects in terms of influencing consumer behavior. Therefore, this project illustrates how companies are capable of influencing consumer behavior in order to promote a company’s image and create brand loyalty with consumers despite the implementation of unethical practices. It is important to note and understand now, that this research was done in order to explain how companies market and communicate underlying messages via unethical marketing advertisements. The creation of these messages by marketers and thus the anticipated understanding of these messages by consumers may be intentional or unintentional. Meaning that often, an advertisement may portray one thing (such as the company’s product), yet depict an underlying message (such as the objectification of women). These marketing strategies and advertisements are usually determined via the overall ethics of a company. Keywords: marketing, unethical marketing, tactics, methods, usage, utilization 2 Introduction The creation of the concept, “Unethical Marketing: Why the Bad works so Good”, is not something that came to me over night. The design of this thesis topic was actually quite a journey. While reflecting on my academic experiences of my undergraduate studies, I thought about a particular topic in marketing that is often undervalued and not explored enough. The topic, unethical marketing, is a facet of marketing in which I have minimal research background. The origin of studying this topic began as a result of some personal assignments that I completed during my sophomore year at Alfred University. In the fall of 2013, my first semester of my sophomore year, my curriculum required me to take a class titled Marketing 221: Marketing Principles and Management. Dr. Amy Rummel taught this class, an introduction class, in marketing. In this class, Dr. Rummel teaches about many of the foundations relevant to the field of marketing. One of the fundamental aspect’s that is greatly involved in business, especially in marketing, is ethics. The definition of ethics and its importance to marketing will be explained later, however, it is relevant to mention now in order to understand how my thesis topic developed. After introducing the overall topic of ethics in marketing, Dr. Rummel incorporated the subtopic (although it is rather lengthy) of unethical marketing. Although the lesson on unethical marketing was limited to one class, and thus brief, it was obvious that unethical marketing is an issue of great importance. The main takeaway from the lesson was that unethical marketing could have effects on both marketers and consumers. In order to understand the topic of unethical marketing further, my class was assigned the task of finding an article/advertisement that displayed unethical marketing. After finding a 3 particular article/advertisement, we were to explain the effect(s) it had on both the company and consumers involved. My assumption at first was that this was just another “typical homework assignment”. The assignment would require approximately an hour worth of research, but not much more would come of it, aside from a grade. This, however, was not the case. As my research began, I became heavily invested in the topic and explored much more than just one article/advertisement. The assignment ended up becoming an eye opening experience for me. It had never occurred to me before that many of the companies that I purchased products from, as well as were loyal to, (due to their popularity and brand) were guilty of utilizing unethical marketing practices. Similar to many other consumers, I had not had this awareness prior because my focus was not on the companies’ marketing strategies. The companies’ product/service and brand name were the only things that mattered to me at that time. Due to my concentration with the companies’ product/service and brand, it was easy to bypass the subliminal messages that the companies’ advertisements were portraying. I had never previously found the true relevance of advertisements, company messages, and even marketing strategies, until that day, when I completed that homework assignment. For the assignment, my instinct led me to focus on familiar companies (ones that I normally shopped from). My interests/research directed me to the company, Abercrombie and Fitch. As a frequent shopper of Abercrombie and Fitch, I had never before questioned the company and their ethics. Abercrombie and Fitch’s clothing had long been the “in thing” amongst teens such as myself. This belief soon changed for me, however, after learning that many unethical incidents hid behind the good-looking shirtless man from their 4 advertisements. Some of these incidences included but were not limited to: the objectification of women and men, cruelty towards people of larger size, and lack of approval for differences amongst people. Many of these occurrences went unnoticed until the company’s CEO foolishly admitted to some of them via an interview. My comments on these incidences will end here due to the fact that Abercrombie and Fitch is one of the company’s that is later discussed in my research. My classmates explained that other companies had also utilized unethical marketing methods just as Abercrombie and Fitch did. Companies such as Reebok, Peta, and Burger King were all examples given. Conversely to the situation Abercrombie and Fitch faced, the overwhelming majority of these companies used unethical marketing tactics with no negative responses resulting. The ads of these companies worked to the extent that the negative effects we’d assume (decrease of brand awareness, decrease of product/service purchase, decrease of likeliness, etc.) were seen minimally or even not at all. This information was surprising to me, and thus from all of this evidence, my first theory about unethical marketing arose. My theory was that unethical advertisements, and their true meaning(s), tend to go unnoticed by consumers. As a result, marketers tend to use unethical marketing tactics to their advantage because it does not negatively affect their brand or theirs sales. The key question that remained for me then was, “how do marketers do this?” Once again, the ability to explore the topic of unethical marketing arose later in that same semester of the fall of 2013. This time, however, the research was done in order to complete a leadership issues paper for the Alfred University Women’s Leadership Academy. This time however, the focus for my research was “how unethical marketing 5 negatively affects women”. While studying advertisements, it was apparent that unethical marketing strategies were widely used by various marketers and companies. In particular, it was recognizable that although marketers do not want consumers to view their company, products, and services negatively, the objectification of women is a reoccurring strategy that is used. Why then do marketers use unethical marketing methods? Is there an underlying motive that we, as consumers, are not aware of? Is unethical marketing beneficial? In those questions lies the origin of my research for this thesis. The answers to these questions lie ahead in this project. My lack of understanding about the accurate outcomes of unethical marketing in the past essentially was what led to this hypothesis and research. The reality, as you will see, is that many consumers tend to dismiss or forget about companies unethical actions due to the appeal of unethical advertisements. In addition, consumers’ tend to have strong loyalty to brand(s). Consequently, consumers are likely to ignore/not worry about ethics when it comes to making purchasing due to the fact that they are more concerned with the appeal of products and or services rather than the “unethicalness”. There is some prior research that studies the dynamics of unethical marketing such as: Exonerating Unethical Marketing Executive Behaviors: A Diagnostic Framework (Mascarenhas, O. J. 1995), The Ethical and Unethical Dimensions of Marketing (Vassilikopoulou, A., Siomkos, G., & Rouvaki, C., 2008), and Marketing Mix- An Area of Unethical Practices? (Siham, B., Dr. 2013). Though I mention these works here, I simply provide them as additional resources since they too discuss unethical marketing. Nevertheless, I will not make any references to these articles throughout my own work 6 because my work is principally different from these studies, due to the fact that my focus is on how unethical marketing tactics work well. Little to no data exists

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