Applied Business Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Applied Business Ethics - Essay Example In marketing, ethics are extremely vital as they affect the performance of an organization (Cohen, 2007). Ethics is the principles one uses to make an outright decision. Marketing sections face their own set of ethical dilemma-related problems concerning pricing, product development, distribution and advertisements. Many organizations may be faced by a dilemma in choosing the advertisement approach to take (Harding, 2010). This is evident on whether to adopt sexual and emotional appeal advertisements as part of the marketing strategy. Justification The use of sexually appealing advertisements has been on the rise in the recent past years. It is becoming more blatant as marketers are trying to find ways to overcome the media clutters. These adverts are integrated with persuasive sexual information (Liu, Li & Cheng, 2006). Such techniques are intentionally controversial in order to grab the attention of an individual, thus, creating the product awareness. Although this approach of adve rtising is popular, it faces criticism due to the ethical dilemmas surrounding it. Emotional appeal, on the other hand, is based on three ideas. The consumer does not pay much attention to the advertisement. Secondly, consumers do not notice rational appeals unless they are looking for the product being advertised. Last and most prominent, use of emotional adverts, attempts to capture the attention of the viewer and link the consumer to the product being advertised. The use of sex and emotional appealing adverts have led to the growth of many businesses because of the homogenous belief that consumer needs, and interest are alike (Chan et al., 2007). However, organizations are faced by ethical challenges when adopting them. Therefore, an organization should critically decide the marketing approach to adopt. The cultural image of the organization is mainly founded by products and services they offer. Adverts integrated with sex appealing images are at times seen to be pornographic. Th is often leads to the notion that the organization promotes it, which adversely affects the image of the organization. The use of the female sexual icons in the adverts may also lead to distortion of many norms and beliefs, especially the young and innocent people who cannot distinguish the appropriate content of the advert (Foley, 1999). This often derails the values of the community at large. The use of emotional appeal contexts has been criticised ethically. It has been argued that businesses utilizing emotional appeal tend to exploit the viewers’ emotions. Businesses may be marketing a flawed product or a product which can bring harm to the society, but due to the emotional attachments the viewer has developed, one may end up buying it. It may also persuade one to buy what might not be needed. Ethical decisions making The ethical decision making process of solving this dilemma should be based on the two approaches; teleology and deontology. The deontological methodology i s concerned with the notions of universal truths, values and principles, to be followed irrespective of the situation. The categorical imperative stated by Kant, dictates that faced by a situation, one should respond in a way which is consistent and conforms to the ethical principles. He should also be content and comfortable with the decision made with full consideration of others. Therefore, in deciding on the effective marketing