Ethics in Global Marketing
Marketing is the process of bringing together businesses with customers and involves numerous components. There is product development, deciding what is needed. There is public relations, trying to get along smoothly with others so they will help send you business. Then there is advertising, which is telling everybody what you have and why they need it, and need it from you! There is a lot of cross over between these areas, but combined they are marketing.
Marketing was generally local and done customer by customer. While there was competition, it was usually some one you knew. With the Internet, that has changed and marketing has gone Global! Now it seems a fee for all with Mexico competes with China and both struggling to out produce India. But what about the ethics or principles that once governed marketing and business, have they gone global as well? Unfortunately ethics seems to have been lost in the Global Business World of today! What happened to ethics?
The problem with ethics is that they are variable from culture to culture and place to place. Because they are not uniform around the world, many places seem to feel they no longer apply. It is further compounded by religious issues as well. What one religion feels is great, others consider sacrilege. Business is the same.
In most places, people trade with those,” they know and develop relationships over time. One man may build your house while, landscapes the yard and the uncle runs the supermarket. Each one knows that if something goes too wrong, they will look bad to the rest of the family and lose respect., You also will usually not cheat some one that goes to the same religious service. On the global market, there are more options, but they are often hard to reference and each one oft n does as they please because the consequences are not as bad, they can always go to another country or region. A Christian may not cheat another Christian, but shipping low standard to a Hindu in India is “shifting inventory”, ethics go out the window.
One can also now hire some very high powered PR firms to help promote your business or do damage control, hide the unethical things that may have happened. These firms can hire professional writers that will write anything, and make it a glowing report even for a rotten product. These persons were once difficult to get and limited in what they could do, but not with the Internet!
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