Marketing Ethics
Part 1
When it comes to marketing, there are several moral issues that affect many businesses across the world. It means that the majority of businesses ignore their moral duties to the consumers thus affecting consumers’ rights. One of the most common ethical issues that arise in marketing is packaging, especially when it involves labeling and graphics. For instance, there are some products that are labeled as fat free but have some amount of fat in them. It means that the labeling information that has been used is misleading to the consumers and that the organization is indeed using false information to promote their product or increase their sales (Gray, 2016). Examples of products that have raised ethical issues include organic infant formula which is being produced by Similac Company and Kind Bars products.
The primary, direct and indirect stakeholders have shown concern regarding the ethical product safety of Advance Organic Infant Formulas. The government, which is among its direct stakeholders, together with consumers had raised concerns regarding the ingredients that are being used by the company. According to the advertisements of Similac Company,their products were organic. However, based on the results obtained by the Abbot Laboratories, about 26 ingredients of their products were not organic and neither allowed as organic foods (Heneghan, 2015). On the other hand, Kind bars also raised concern among the stakeholders because of their labeling of their Kind snack bars. The products which had been labeled as healthy were really not as the FDA found them to have a wide variety of fat content that was more than 1gram which exceeded the regular requirement for healthy meals (Heneghan, 2015). This has made the major stakeholders, especially the customers, to worry about the health benefits of their products. These two issues can negatively impact the customer’s health while at the same time making Similac Company and Kind Snack bars to lose such stakeholders as their investors.
Part 2
Brand reputation involves management of interaction dynamics between the product and its reputation. When a company decides to determine their brand reputation, it means that they are trying to evaluate people’s thoughts regarding their product and whether they are properly aligned to attain the commercial success. The ways in which the product performs in the market greatly determines the brand’s reputation with the key stakeholders. The main stakeholders in this case can include the employees, the customers, the media, the prospects, the senior management, the supply chain, and the regulators (Tucker, 2010). In most cases, you will find that the reputation expectations of the shareholders are totally different from that of the customers, thus an organization needs to address the needs differently. This means that the performance metrics of a product may seem good according to the shareholders.
However, because of availability of better products in the market, the consumers may prefer to purchase another brand. This may end up affecting the overall performance of the brand because of low sales. At the same time, the supply chain may consider the fact that the brand is not selling as expected thus decide to channel their operation to another organization which is experiencing better performance. This performance matrix is not surprising even though the brand is just one (Million, 2015). The reputation profile of the brand is what will determine the ways in which it performs among the key stakeholders. In order to overcome such challenge, it is important for organization managers to be consistent with the brand messaging in order to raise its reputation to its key stakeholders.
Many organizations have adopted the econometric models to help them measure the success or failure of a brand in the market (Million, 2015). It means that they estimate the brands economic value, especially the manner in which it is currently being used, while comparing it with the possible net earnings of the brand in future. When the brand has value in the economy, the company will be certain that it is successful. However, if it lacks value, it means that the brand is failing in the market thus there is a need for the company to develop new management tools to try and change the performance of the brand (Tucker, 2010).
The other ways in which a company can measure or define the success of a brand is by checking the historical purchase behaviors of the customers. In this regard, the company will have to disregard other stakeholders, like the employees, media, supply chain, and the regulators. The consumer purchase behavior will be the main indicator of the ways in which the product will behave or perform in the future, especially in the next fiscal year.
The other information that may help provide an organization with the right elements for measuring a brand’s performance is the weight factor which is often applied when conducting financial analysis. The metrics will be retrieved by comparing the brand with others based on non-transparency method (Million, 2015). This will help the organization to know the competitive nature of the brand helping them to evaluate its performance in the market.
References
Gray, JW. (2016, May 16). Moral issues related to consumers. Retrieved from https://ethicalrealism.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/moral-issues-related-to-consumers/
Heneghan, C. (2015, June 17). 5 products accused of mislabeling issues. Retrieved from http://www.fooddive.com/news/5-products-accused-of-mislabeling-issues/400694/
Million, M. (2015). Determining the right brand metrics to track performance. Retrieved from http://www.fullsurge.com/resources/determining-the-right-brand-metrics-to-track-performance
Tucker, A. (2010). Measuring brand reputation. Retrieved from http://www.financepractitioner.com/business-strategy-best-practice/measuring-brand-reputation?full