How to avoid common ethical marketing mistakes

As a marketer you know it’s best to be ethical and transparent, but that’s sometimes easier said than done. Ethics is often a gray area. It’s not always clear what’s right and wrong, and the determination of what’s “right” can vary from person to person.

In marketing, this is especially difficult because usually, it’s your customers who get the final say after your campaign or idea has already launched. If they admire your tactics, you can build lasting trust and interest in your brand. But if your audience finds out you’ve crossed into unethical marketing, you could become the target of a new Twitter-fueled boycott. An increasing number of customers are demanding companies to be honest and trustworthy. It’s now especially important to ensure all your marketing practices are ethical.

What is marketing ethics?

Marketing ethics is an overarching moral philosophy of fairness, honesty and transparency that guides your organization’s marketing department.

“Ethical marketing, like business ethics, is doing the right thing with an emphasis on telling the truth about what you are marketing,” said Brent Scholar, lecturer in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts and marketing ethics instructor for ASU Continuing and Professional Education.

This means ethical marketing isn’t one plan or strategy. Instead, it’s a set of values that you use to evaluate all your marketing campaigns. When marketing is honest and fair, you can create genuine conversations with customers and build long-term trust in your brand.

“Ethical marketing is transparent, caring and authentic,” said Elizabeth Castillo, assistant professor in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts and a business ethics instructor for ASU Continuing and Professional Education. “It strives to build dialogue and meaningful engagement with stakeholders.”

This meaningful engagement is important and what makes ethical marketing so fruitful. When your customers trust your brand, they will be more willing to buy your product or service.

Ethical versus unethical marketing

Unethical marketing is the opposite of ethical marketing. Instead of being honest and fair, it’s misleading and offensive.

“Unethical marketing is parasitic,” Castillo said. “It takes advantage of customers through misleading information and half-truths, encouraging them to act in ways that are not in their long-term interest.”

This is something marketers would want to avoid. But even with the best intentions, it can still be possible to accidentally slip into unethical marketing practices.

Five unethical marketing practices to know and avoid:

Ethical marketing benefits

Being an ethical marketer isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s also a smart business strategy.

“Increasingly, firms recognize that a conversational, transparent approach to engaging stakeholders can generate new insights and enhance the firm’s capacity for value creation,” Castillo said.

Unethical marketing may give you a quick sales boost, but once you get caught it can take years to rebuild your brand’s reputation. Ethical marketing avoids controversy while also building long-term trust and customer loyalty.

“When one does anything from an ethical standpoint, it does not have to be just marketing, it builds trust because consumers know what to expect from your organization,” Scholar said. “They also know they are getting a quality product or service.”

Ethical marketing combined with strong business ethics across your organization can be an especially powerful tool to build a positive brand reputation and create long-term growth.

“Customers are eager to do business with this type of company,” Castillo said. “This leads to strong customer loyalty, which in turn strengthens the firm’s brand and market value, creating a virtuous cycle.”