Marketing Ethics in Practice

Topic

Marketing ethics in practice (A case of Epson’s Planned Obsolescence)

Instructions

Essay title: Critical evaluation of marketing ethics in practice: [your selected case]

Your task is to find a current debate in the news or social media that involves one or several marketing ethics issues and dimensions. For instance, you might examine problems with planned obsolescence (e.g. related to the case in French courts against printer producers), ownership of consumer information (on social media platforms), remuneration of consumer input, targeting specific consumer groups, commodification of essential products (such as water), extensive industry lobbying towards governments and supra-governmental institutions (e.g. in the EU) or how actions of activist groups challenge toward certain forms of corporate activities in the market place.

You can use a wide range of media, such as discussion boards or Facebook pages, as sources for the case of your paper, but you need connect with philosophical, theoretical, and academic sources for your argumentation. Use marketing ethics theories and add external sources (tip: take a look at the reference lists of the assigned articles, the library’s databases and so on). Thus, you cannot use your opinions only, but you need to support your discussion with an analysis, using the research of others.

Required Structure:

  1. Introduction: background information regarding the case (company, industry, common business practice)
  2. The ethical issue / issues at stake: why is this recognised as an ethical issue, from which point of view, what is the relevance to marketing practice more broadly, etc.
  3. The ethical implications: who are the key stakeholders, how can you evaluate consequences and ethical principles, etc.
  4. Potential business, regulatory and consumer / citizen responses: what are the potential courses of action, are there any or should there be any relevant rules/regulations, what is the role of consumers, etc.
  5. Discussion and conclusion: what can be learned from this case, what are the implications
  6. References (22 references minimum in Harvard style).

Words: 2900

Answer preview

The ideal role of marketing ethics is to create a mutually constructive relationship between a product or service provider and customers (Cova and Dalli, 2009). However, some business practices raise the ethical concerns among consumers.  This paper examines the practice of planned obsolescence by Epson as reported by different social media and blog discussions. The case of Epson is examined from a theoretical perspective to explicate the potential implication in marketing ethics, business and consumers.

Epson prides itself with providing printers for home or office, with capabilities such as a wireless, all-in-one and portability. However, the company has recently faced accusation of fooling customers into purchasing printers with planned obsolesce.  According to a legal suit filed by Halte à obsolescence Programmée, the printer face criminal charges of deliberately reducing the lifespan of printers to force customers to seek replacement.

Word count: 3507