Correlating ethics and marketing in the digital world
In one of his interactions, Jeff Bezos quoted, “In business, what’s dangerous is not to evolve” and every
marketer could resonate with the sentiment. In today’s competitive landscape, marketing has become more
crucial and greatly evolved to suit the technology-driven world. Marketing is no longer limited to traditional
channels but has rapidly expanded to digital channels like social media, webpages, and mobile applications.
Digital marketing is no longer only a buzzword, but many sectors like E-commerce, travel, and education are
spending more than 70% of their marketing spend on digital marketing.
The evolution of marketing in today’s digital world expands the opportunities but also brings a set of ethical
issues to deal with. Though the essence or boundary of ethics may vary depending on the individual, there are
many practices that can’t be justified or have an adverse effect on customer perception of the brand.
We often see our inbox flooded with spam mails or our browser suddenly redirecting us to other sites. Even
though such practices seem very ordinary, they have significant ethical aspects attached to them. Though the
goal of such marketing practices might be to attract a particular segment of the customer- the intent of the
customer to visit the product page or receive such promotional mail often gets overlooked. The moral limits
continue to become more porous as companies continue to adopt such tactics without pondering into ethical
aspects of it. Most sites collect data from the user by promoting sign-up, but how they use it or share it with
other sources remains unclear and undefined to the user and is often used to target the customer without his
consent. We often face repetitive ads or spam emails due to such unethical data sharing, and there is a need
to regulate and empower the customer over the use of his information.
The boundaries of ethics often get crossed by misleading advertising and thumbnails that try to get the user to
click and view more about the offering, which often fails to achieve expectations. Social media being the action
ground of digital marketing, is filled with misleading reviews, which are usually paid and biased. These are not
only unethical but also break the viewers' trust in the long run. Though such unethical marketing practices may
achieve more customers and great interaction metrics, the long-term implication of such practices remains
questionable.
Digital campaigns aim to reach the right customers through all possible channels, and quite often these also
prove helpful to customers seeking such products. However, the distinction of such methods from being
ethical or unethical often gets blurred as a user are not able to practice any control over being part of such
campaigns, unlike the traditional marketing channels. Lately, there have been regulations like General Data
Protection Regulation in the EU & Data Protection Act in the UK, which try to empower the users with greater
control over their data. Google also has been offering users sign-out of target advertising to practice control
over being part of such marketing practices, but most users are unaware of the feature. Therefore, there is a
great need for more such data regulations worldwide and an increase in user awareness to counter the
unethical aspects that the new age of marketing brings along.
References for Data:
https://www.statista.com/study/109621/digital-marketing-in-india/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303411/india-digital-marketing-spend-share-by-industry/
http://www.efos.unios.hr/poslovni-engleski-diplomski-4/wp-content/uploads/sites/368/2019/02/ROLE-OFETHICS-IN-DIGITAL-MARKETING.pdf