Legal, Social and Ethics

Ethics in Marketing, Codes of Ethics and Business Conduct

Marketer's activities are sometime felt in negative ways and are open to criticism on ethical grounds. This section deals with ethical issues in marketing. It includes a look at how companies deal with ethics through Code of Ethics or Business Conduct documents for various organizations. In some cases the codes are company specific while others provide guidelines for an entire marketing areas. Organizations looking to create their own code may find good ideas by examining the information published by others.

Marketing Stories for Topic Area
Borrowers Hoodwinked by Deceptive Ads (question of ads targeted at borrowers) NPR [audio] Robbing the Cradle? If Marketers Get Their Way, That Bundle of Joy Can Cost a Bundle (the ethics of marketing ways to make kids smarter) Knowledge @ Wharton McDonald's Offers Ethics with Those Fries (environmental awareness program) BusinessWeek

The Weblinks Collection

AMA - Statement of Ethics *Statement from American Marketing Association a leading U.S. trade association.
CASRO - Ethics Code for Survey Research *The Council of American Survey Research Organization has a well presented Code of Standards and Ethics for Survey Research covering issue of interest to companies doing offline and online surveys.
CIM - Code of Professional Standards, Ethics and Disciplinary Procedures *The Charter Institute of Marketing (U.K.) has fairly extensive coverage of within its code.
CMA - Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice *From Canadian Marketing Association the country's leading marketing trade association.
Coca-Cola - Code of Business Conduct *Coke's conduct policy is available in 15 different languages.
DMA - Ethical Guidelines *The Direct Marketing Association offers several resources covering its ethics policy.
MMA - Code of Conduct for Mobile Marketing *The Mobile Marketing Association's code considers six major categories of conduct.
MSR - Code of Conduct *UK-based Market Research Society's code for its members.
P&G - Worldwide Business Conduct Manual *This long (64 pages) and glossy document (in PDF format) covers a lot of ground for how Procter & Gamble employees are expected to act.
PRSA - Ethics Resources *This Public Relations Society of America site not only includes their Code of Ethics statement but also other resources including case studies.
WebSM - Web Survey Methodology *This site's focus is pretty narrow - online surveying. But the depth of coverage is impressive. The site looks at many issues related to online survey research such as questionnaire design, issues of non-response, participant recruitment, offering incentives and much more. For academic researchers the best part of the site is the extensive bibliography for each category. While marketing practitioners will find an impressive listing and description of companies offering survey software. Both academics and practitioners will like the Guides, Standards and Best Practices area that includes privacy, security and ethical issues.
WOMMA - Ethics Code *Statement from Word of Mouth Marketing Association a new trade group focused on viral marketing.
Yahoo! - The Guide to Business Conduct & Ethics *This document covers ethics and also how business will be done.

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