Where do we set the bar on ethics?

One of my favorite shows is Mad Men. It has won the Emmy for best drama three years straight. Besides presenting an engaging and enlightening view into the early 1960's. It combines strong characters with intelligent dialogue and just a dash of dark humor. I particularly liked the most recent episode broadcast on Sunday night here. For those who don't wish to know the plot skip the next few lines. As we know, Don Draper, the head of creative for Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce paid to have an open letter in the New York Times where he renounced any future intent to do advertising for cigarettes.

I find this interesting because it raises a rarely discussed part of marketing and communications and that is the aspect of where do we draw the line when it comes to marketing and communicating in an ethical setting. Now I will assume that no one believes that it is in anyway ethical to market a product which is illegal. The big gray area becomes whether or not it is unethical to design a marketing campaign for a product which is perfectly legal, but is certainly unhealthy.

Obviously the biggest market to consider is what Don Draper was considering and that was cigarettes. While they remain perfectly legal products, one has to consider if doing marketing for these products is unto itself unethical. While I do not smoke, and I am a huge proponent of preventing smoking, and it will kill you, the fact remains that it is a legal and highly regulated product.

Another industry to keep in mind is the fast food industry which sells meals which are extremely unhealthy and a leading cause of obesity today. But once again the fact remains it is a legal product and one whose risks, while not as sharply defined as cigarettes, are clear and distinct.

The final industry to consider is defense related industries. These people make weapons and let's be honest, weapons kill people. That is their purpose. If they fail to do this then they have failed! But having worked with that field the logic is that their products, if well designed, will save lives by making the other fellow less likely to start anything!

So now we're at the crux of the argument. Is is necessarily unethical for a marketing person to do their job in a field where the product is unhealthy. While some people may not like my answer, I believe there is nothing wrong with working for a company who is selling a legal product. Granted, there perfectly acceptable reasons to be upset with the products themselves but that does not render the product themselves unacceptable provided they meet the appropriate regulatory requirements.

Kudos to Don Draper for making a stand and deciding that his company will draw the line at cigarettes. Notice that the writers did not put McDonald's in the script. If someone wants to take a stand and would not wish to work for a company which makes a product or promotes a lifestyle they object to, that is their right to refuse. Just remember, as Don Draper learned, nothing happens in a vacuum and there will be ramifications. Stands are very brave and should be respected, let's remember the old quip that in physics, every action has an opposite and equal reaction while in business that reaction is 20 fold!

The importance of ethics in marketing

In the U.S. right now there is a lot of fear regarding China. Now of course there is good reason. They have a huge army, love selling weapons to dictators, put anyone who looks funny into jail and God knows what else. But the really scary part is China's growing economy. Back in the day there was a term called "Chinese Marketing," which spoke of the fallacy of assuming that because an economy had X number of people you would be able to get them all to agree to purchase your product.

What should be of even greater concern is the concept of a growing move for ethics in China. I was speaking to a colleague just back from China who was impressed by a banner he saw throughout a Chinese company. Loosely translated it read, "Social responsibility is good for our business and our good business is good for you." I laughed when I read it because it sounded so very simple and at the same time was an ideal testimony to what this organization wished to convey to its customers.

This topic reminds me of an article in Business Week last week about a Chinese company whose CEO has made it very clear to investors that they come last in his pecking order. First, is his company's customer's, second are his employees and then come investors. By doing this he has a both a satisfied customer base and satisfied employees who combine to deliver exceptional results that result in satisfied investors quarter after quarter.

Contrast that with companies in the United States who see "flipping," or going public as a quick way to pocket a few dollars and then leave the market. They show no long term interest in growing for the customers and the customer is quite often an ends to a means. I have had the miserable experience of having my sales rep ignore me more or less until the end of the quarter. Then magically we are best buddies if my contract is up for renewal. Sadly this is typical of companies where meeting "the numbers" is what passes for business and as we see from the examples of Enron and so many other companies earlier in the decade, and Bernie Madoff recently, even out and out fraud are often practiced with little regard for the long term marketing problems.

Two companies should be put into the marketing hall of fame for how they handled a problematic ethical issue, which was ironically not of their own making. Johnson and Johnson and the Tylenol issue in 1982 showed how a company should handle any issue that concerns the safety of their customers. They were publicly traded but showed how concern for ones customer can result in a stronger result down the road. Speaking for myself, if I am looking to buy an over the counter medicine more than 25 years after the Tylenol poisoning, I reach for a Johnson and Johnson product when ever possible because to me, they have my best interests in their mind. God knows how many times they recouped the losses from those terrible days.

The second case is less well known but worth remembering as a teaching moment. In the summer of 1993 people claimed they were finding used hypodermic needles in Pepsi cans. Pepsi went back and shut down production to figure out how this was possible and where in there production process something might have gone wrong. They pulled products from any of the areas where the needles were found and then retooled the process so no foreign object can be put into one of the cans.

More importantly, they sat down with Coca-Cola and more or less said, "Today it is us, tomorrow it might be you." Combined, both companies worked out a solution which did two things, it proved the people with the needles were liars but also developed a combined PR campaign which proved that both leaders had worked together to secure their production process from any type of problem,

The take away here is that there is more to ethics in business than simply writing a plan and feeling good about yourself. You need to have a plan in place which will roll in and protect your brand. An ethical breech can cost you millions of dollars if not your entire brand! Act aggressively to be a good ethical citizen and remember social responsibility is good for your business and good business is good for you!