ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR MARKETING PRACTICE:
A REPLY TO GASKI & SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE ROLE OF
NORMATIVE MARKETING ETHICS
N. Craig Smith
Centre for Marketing Working Paper
No. 00-701
March 2000
Acknowledgement: The author thanks George G. Brenkert for helpful comments on an
earlier version of this article.
London Business School, Regent's Park, London NW1 4SA, U.K.
Tel: +44 (0)20 7262-5050 Fax: +44 (0)20 7724-1145
http://www.london.edu/Marketing
Copyright ‹ London Business School 2000
ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR MARKETING PRACTICE:
A REPLY TO GASKI & SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE ROLE OF
NORMATIVE MARKETING ETHICS
Abstract
Gaski (1999) is critical of marketing ethics and suggests that its ethical guidelines amount to
no more than ‘obey the law’ and ‘act in your self-interest’. This reply questions Gaski’s critique
and clarifies possible misconceptions about the field that might otherwise result. It identifies the
limitations and assumptions of Gaski’s argument and shows that there are exceptions to his central
proposition even when narrowly circumscribed. It is not disputed that there is merit to reminding
managers of their obligations to obey the law and to act in their enlightened self-interest. However,
although fulfilling these obligations is generally a necessary requirement for good conduct, it is not
sufficient. There are situations where ethics demands more of marketing managers than ‘obey the
law’ and ‘act in your self-interest’. In addition, managers may face situations where ethics, the law
and self-interest are inconsistent. The article incorporates observations on the role of normative
marketing ethics, including the requirement to develop ethical theory for marketing as well as
ethical guidelines.
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John Gaski has doubts about the contribution of the field of marketing ethics. In “Does
Marketing Ethics Really Have Anything to Say?” Gaski (1999, p. 330) refers to the “total
redundancy and superfluity of marketing ethics,” asserting: “What are almost universally
positioned as ethical issues in marketing are, in reality, nothing more than legal or economic
issues” (p. 330). He suggests that marketing ethics should “concede that it has nothing to say
beyond ‘obey the law’ and ‘act in your own commercial interest’” (p. 328). Gaski goes so far as
to suggest that “the subject of marketing ethics appears to be completely undistinguished,
feckless, jejune, and vacant operationally, offering not an iota of content distinct from other
established normative concepts” (pp. 328-330).
It is tempting to simply dismiss Gaski’s claims as bizarre or in jest. How could
marketing ethics possibly be ‘totally redundant’? But this would be too hasty. Gaski appears to
be serious in his critique (and reviewers and editors at the Journal of Business Ethics have
treated his essay as such). While Gaski’s argument is readily exposed as seriously flawed, it still
warrants a reply if only because of the credence given by its publication. Accordingly, a
primary purpose of this article is to provide a reply to Gaski that examines his argument and
addresses possible misconceptions that his essay might create. Gaski’s argument is somewhat
more narrowly circumscribed than his provocative title and the foregoing quotations might
suggest.i Nonetheless, after careful dissection, it is rejected and his criticisms of marketing
ethics refuted.
However, this article has a broader purpose beyond offering a reply to Gaski. It is not
unusual to come across students and managers who, naively perhaps, claim that ethical issues in
marketing may be resolved easily by reference to the law or self-interest. Gaski’s article
prompts an examination of such claims. Furthermore, it provides an opportunity to offer some
observations on the role and challenges of normative marketing ethics. This discussion
acknowledges the importance of basic ethical prescriptions—including obey the law and
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consider your enlightened self-interest—but also shows that marketing ethics has a more
extensive domain. Finally, Gaski’s article is a useful basis for reflections on the contribution of
marketing ethics to marketing practice.
In the next section, Gaski’s claims and their foundation are examined in more detail.
The circularity of his reasoning with regard to the asserted redundancy of marketing ethics
prescriptions is exposed. More important, however, is clarification of the explicit and implicit
limitations of his critique of marketing ethics and the argument regarding obey the law and
follow your self-interest as maxims for ethical marketing practice. Next, this article examines
the law and self-interest as guides to good conduct and concludes that they are not sufficient.
This is evident from ethical prescriptions within the extant literature and from identifying
situations where marketing managers are expected to do more or do something different than the
law or self-interest would appear to dictate. Finally, the article concludes with observations on
the contributions of marketing ethics to date and opportunities for further work to advance this
important area of research and practice.
GASKI’S CRITIQUE & THE SCOPE OF MARKETING ETHICS
Gaski (1999, abstract) asserts that “in terms of pragmatic behavioral guidance as well as
conceptual content, marketing ethics has nothing new or distinctive to offer.” His apparent
starting point was a suspicion that “all or most so-called ethical guidelines for marketers are
mere restatements of other established normative principles such as law and economic selfinterest” (p. 316). Hence his central proposition is as follows:
all the standard ethical prescriptions in the field of marketing can be reduced
conceptually to either (a) obey the law or (b) act in your own self-interest, i.e., do what is
right because if you do not, it will be damaging to your interests in the long run (p. 316).
To test this proposition, Gaski identifies an inventory of ethical prescriptions from the
marketing ethics literature and then attempts to show that they are redundant with his law and/or
self-interest prescription. There are a number of limitations that Gaski explicitly or implicitly
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imposes on this proposition. Nonetheless, by implication, were it to be supported, a marketing
manager faced with a decision that has ethical content need not give any thought to ethical
prescriptions in the literature, but rather can rely on obeying the law and acting in his or her
long-run commercial self-interest.
Gaski’s review identified seventeen ethical prescriptions and concluded that all 17
amount to “no more than advice to abide by existing principles of law and self-interest” (p. 324).
More specifically, 4 prescriptions are said to be consistent with both principles: do not market
harmful or dangerous products, deceive the customer, coerce other members of the distribution
channel, or disparage competitors. Three prescriptions are said to be consistent with act in your
self-interest only: customer is entitled to receive fair value for the money spent, provide easily
accessible channels for customer complaints, and do not over-recommend product quality level
to the customer. Finally, 10 prescriptions are said to be consistent with obey the law only;
including: do not engage in price fixing, predatory pricing, or bribery.
Of course, consistency of an ethical principle with the law or self-interest does not mean
that its content is limited only to what the law or self-interest would dictate. From a Kantian
perspective, one could agree that “do not kill” is consistent with existing law and self-interest
and yet think that this prescription is not reducible or equivalent to obey the law and/or act in
your self-interest. However, Gaski’s interest lies specifically in whether the marketing ethics
literature offers guidelines for marketing management practice that cannot adequately be
substituted by the prescriptions of obey the law or act in your self-interest (Gaski 1999, p. 317).
In this reply, the emphasis will be on this narrower interpretation of Gaski’s central proposition,
ignoring the broader claim that the content of marketing ethics is reducible to or equivalent to
obey the law and act in your self-interest.
Although verbal logic alone should be sufficient for Gaski’s purposes, he also offers
empirical corroboration in the form of surveys of a business school faculty and of marketing
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practitioner members of the American Marketing Association. His respondents generally
agreed with his classification of the ethics principles as consistent with obey the law and/or act
in your self-interest, but the study has methodological problems.ii
Yet by logic alone we can swiftly dismiss Gaski’s claims as stated. He sets up a ‘straw
man’ argument that is readily apparent to any careful reader. Let us accept, for the moment, the
premises on which his argument is based and its many explicit and implicit limitations and
assumptions, as later discussed. On his terms, then, Gaski’s central proposition is easily
exposed as fallacious. Even without the limitations that Gaski himself imposes, it seems
inconceivable that he could have found support for his null hypothesis. Any possible ethical
prescription for marketing (or business in general) would be consistent with act in your selfinterest if, as Gaski appears to believe (pp. 324-325), ‘good ethics is good business’. As he
states: “As long as there is an expectation of economic loss from bad behavior, that should be a
deterrent…” (p. 318). He is not interested in whether, in fact, there is much likelihood of this
expectation being realised or whether managers can identify their self-interest (as later
discussed). If we allow for the prospect of boycotts, negative publicity and other harms to a
firm’s reputation and brand image, as well as possible litigation, as Gaski suggests (pp. 317318), any unethical conduct can be viewed as potentially subject to sanction in the marketplace
and elsewhere. Hence, Gaski may claim that any unethical activity could result in economic loss
and, thus, is not in the firm’s interest. If an activity is not in a firm’s interest, Gaski would
argue, any ethical prescription governing that activity is redundant.
There are other examples of this type of circular reasoning. For example, Gaski excludes
any ethical prescriptions that do not address activities widely considered unethical. More than
this, he establishes consensus by recourse to the law. So, he writes (p. 331, his emphasis): “To
the extent that bribery is not prohibited… there is apparent lack of consensus that it is wrong or
unethical.” There are a number of instances of Gaski mistaking ‘is’ for ‘ought’ (e.g., ethics of
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tobacco marketing) that are later discussed. For now, let us consider the argument made that the
legality of an act is indicative of whether it is ethical and note again that, thus, Gaski would
argue, any ethical prescription governing that activity becomes redundant. Indeed, he admits the
tautology, acknowledging that “if legality indicates a necessary consensus that the behavior in
question is also ethical, then, analytically, there is no empirical opportunity to identify
exceptions to the legal/ethical consistency” (p. 326, his emphasis).
Consider yet one more example of flawed logic. Gaski accepts the foundational role of
ethics in formulating the law and, however misguided, believes that we are “at a juncture,
possibly rare, in which law and prevailing ethics are in close alignment” (p. 326). He then
suggests (p. 330, his emphasis) that “normal commerce under democratic law reconciles so
closely with accepted ethics as to render contemporary marketing ethics, per se, practically
unnecessary.” Yet, by his own argument, ethics must play an important role in ensuring the
continuity of this claimed alignment.
There might well be little reason for a reply to Gaski to go much further. However, it is
both fair and useful to play out the various stated and implicit limitations to his proposition and
this will be done. Moreover, this paper has a more extensive purpose than replying to Gaski.
While Gaski’s central proposition has little merit, it is not unusual to hear managers and students
argue that obedience to the law and self-interest are key to analyzing many purported ethical
issues in marketing. Hence, this paper considers the relevance of these maxims and shows why
they are inadequate, notwithstanding limitations of the type that Gaski attempts to employ. In so
doing, the paper also examines the role of ethical prescriptions in marketing and, more broadly,
the contributions of the field of marketing ethics to marketing practice.
Acknowledged Limitations of Gaski’s Critique and Central Proposition
Gaski’s central proposition and his critique of marketing ethics are bounded, as he
directly or indirectly acknowledges, in the following ways.
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1. The distinction between normative and descriptive marketing ethics. The field of
marketing ethics is a subset of business ethics, which in turn is a subset of ethics. At each level,
there are contributions that might broadly be classified as normative ethics, descriptive ethics, or
metaethics. Smith (1995, p. 86) observes that a “key distinction in the literature is between
descriptive and normative approaches to marketing ethics… Normative approaches to ethics are
prescriptive, identifying moral principles and methods of moral reasoning that justify rules and
judgements of what is right and wrong.” Gaski (1999, p. 316) defines marketing ethics as
“standards of conduct and moral judgment applied to marketing practice.” Although it could be
more comprehensive, this is a reasonable definition of normative marketing ethics.
The majority of contributions to marketing ethics fall within the category of descriptive
(or positive) ethics (evident, for example, in the review by Tsalikis and Fritzsche 1989). These
contributions might use empirical research to identify ethical beliefs of marketers (e.g., Akaah
and Riordan 1989), or develop a model to describe how marketers are believed to make
decisions with ethical content (e.g., Hunt and Vitell 1993) and offer and perhaps test
explanations for these judgements (e.g., Sparks and Hunt 1998). Generally, they do not attempt
to prescribe how managers should act when faced with a marketing decision that has ethical
content.
Towards the end of his article, Gaski (1999, p. 326) acknowledges his “utmost respect
for the scientific contributions of the positive ethics subfield of marketing” (his emphasis).
Also, he admits, in a footnote to his (later) operational definition that “strictly, normative
marketing ethics is defined, as distinguished from the positive science of marketing ethics” (his
emphasis, p. 330). Unfortunately, this important clarification is not evident from the article’s
title or abstract and many of its more sweeping criticisms of the field.
As important, Gaski fails to acknowledge that positive marketing ethics does offer
‘pragmatic behavioral guidance’ for marketing managers. Positive marketing ethics does not
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speak to the ethics of particular practices, such as whether bribery is morally justifiable.
However, it can, for example, speak to the conditions under which bribery might arise and
measures that individuals and organizations might take to reduce its likelihood. This is evident
from the most cursory review of Chonko’s (1995, p. x) Ethical Decision Making in Marketing
and his examination of “how marketing professionals make decisions and the factors and
conflicts involved in those decisions.” By way of illustration, consider the research by one
major contributor to this area, O.C. Ferrell (and his colleagues).
Ferrell and Gresham’s (1985) model of ethical decision making identifies the potential
influence of significant others, opportunity, social and cultural factors, and the individual’s
makeup. It suggests, for example, that decisions about what type of behavior is appropriate in any
given situation are influenced by the opportunity for the individual to engage in ethical or unethical
behavior, where opportunity is a function of organizational culture, professional codes, corporate
policy and rewards and punishments. Ferrell and Weaver (1978) show that individuals differ in
their assessment of the extent to which a marketing decision has ethical content, while Weaver
and Ferrell (1977) highlight the influence of top management on ethical decision making in
organizations. Hence, all three of these papers provide guidance to marketing managers on
ethical issues in marketing and yet are included in the review by Tsalikis and Fritzsche (1989)
that was used by Gaski to develop his marketing ethics bibliography.
2. Normative marketing ethics as applied to marketing managers in their strictly
marketing decision making. Gaski limits his analysis to prescriptions intended to provide
guidance to marketing managers only. He states that it is “guidelines for marketing management
practice that are at issue” (his emphasis, p. 317), but it is the value of this guidance specifically
to marketing managers that is discussed (e.g., p. 328). The field of normative marketing ethics
has roles other than informing practice. However, in this capacity alone, it may provide
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guidance to other decision-makers in a corporation, to those affected by their decisions, to policy
makers and to researchers, as well as to marketing managers.
Moreover, Gaski excludes the “disjunct, stand-alone body of literature on marketing
research ethics” (his emphasis, p. 317). Hence, guidelines for marketing researchers and,
indeed, guidelines for marketing managers about marketing research are ignored. Yet this area
of marketing activity has received the most attention in the marketing ethics literature and, for
various reasons, has the most ethical prescriptions (Laczniak and Murphy 1993; Malhotra 1996;
Smith and Quelch 1993). Most of the professional marketing research associations have quite
extensive codes of conduct that are now available on the Web (e.g., www.aapor.org;
www.casro.org; www.esomar.nl). A cursory review of these codes readily reveals that they
contain prescriptions that reflect law and self-interest. However, they also include prescriptions
that reflect essentially ethical obligations, for example, to respondents. Indeed, one reason these
professional associations are keen to promote their codes is because the researcher’s self-interest
is an inadequate constraint on unethical practices involving respondents that might harm the
industry as a whole or result in legislation that the industry would prefer to avoid (e.g., regarding
data privacy).
Gaski also excludes marketing managers’ decisions about “the ethics of
intraorganizational behavior (e.g., accurate representation of education, confidentiality, etc.)”
(his emphasis, footnote on p. 331) and ethical guidelines on these decisions in the AMA code
and elsewhere. This exclusion is notwithstanding the significance of these issues to marketing
managers themselves, as confirmed in survey research by Chonko and Hunt (1985).
Apparently, Gaski also largely limits his proposition to U.S. marketing managers that are
engaged in domestic marketing, notwithstanding the ever-increasing globalisation of business,
including U.S. business. This is not explicitly stated, but he does refer only to specific U.S. laws
as a basis for claiming the redundancy of ethical prescriptions. His rejection of “ethical
8
imperialism by imposing domestic ethics abroad” (p. 317) presumably also excludes the
application of guidelines evident in U.S. laws to marketing practices overseas. In a footnote,
Gaski observes that “most examples, and surrounding discussion relate to the context of U.S.
law and, therefore, would apply similarly to other market economies with similar commercial
and legal environments” (p. 331). However, in another footnote, Gaski further explains that
“detailed examination of the ethics-law/self-interest relation for every individual nation would
require as many different papers as there are countries” (p. 331). There may be less divergence
than Gaski imagines. Nonetheless, this is acknowledgement of another important limitation to
his proposition.
3. Ethical prescriptions for marketing practice evident in the extant (largely pre-1990)
marketing ethics literature. Gaski makes it unambiguous that his paper “deals with what is
actually found in the marketing literature… not hypothetical findings or literatures” (p. 327) and
only “definite, explicit prescriptions” (p. 317) within that literature. Clearly, testing his
proposition against a hypothetical literature or set of ethical propositions would be difficult,
even if it were worth attempting. However, there are inevitably limitations associated with the
content and extensiveness of the literature reviewed and the prescriptions derived.
The literature relied upon, for the most part, is dated. The primary sources were
literature reviews conducted at least ten years ago (Murphy and Laczniak 1981; Murphy and
Pridgen 1991; Tsalikis and Fritzsche 1989). Although supplemented by an additional review by
Gaski, there is only one cite in the list of references later than 1993 and only 10 cites of a total of
70 published in the 1990s. This lack of attention to the more recent marketing ethics literature
may in part explain Gaski’s failure to recognize the contributions of positive marketing ethics to
ethical decision-making, many of which have appeared in the last decade. Nonetheless—and
regardless of any weaknesses of the extant literature—Gaski (p. 330) also implies doubts about
9
the prospective normative marketing ethics literature, suggesting that the law “reconciles so
closely” with contemporary marketing ethics that the latter is unnecessary.
In addition to the above limitations, Gaski also identifies some specific exceptions on the
basis that they do not constitute definite and explicit prescriptions or because of a perceived
absence of consensus about the prescription or because they are a special case (e.g., deception in
political promotion). Also, judging from his comments about special cases, it should be noted
that Gaski appears to believe that ethics is a matter of public opinion. For example, he states
that “the general public does not consider deception of a political audience to be unethical
marketing” (p. 319). He also appears to conclude that tobacco marketing is ethical on the basis
of majority opinion expressed through representative democracy (and not withstanding special
interests that for many years have prevented effective legislation curtailing tobacco marketing in
the U.S.).
Finally, Gaski is not interested in motives for good conduct: “Ethics may offer an
additional underlying motive for a particular behavior (beyond law or self-interest), but covers
the same material ground” (p. 320). Moreover, in a footnote, he observes that the “issue is not
one of enforcement or successful prosecution… obedience to law and self-interest should
promote behavior indistinguishably different from self-consciously ethical behavior” (p. 331).
However, obedience to the law may be colored by beliefs about whether others obey the law and
the possibility of being caught, which raises one of a number of possible effectiveness
limitations (discussed further below), even if motives for good conduct are treated as
unimportant.
Further Limitations of Gaski’s Critique and Central Proposition
It is not suggested that Gaski’s proposition is unreasonably circumscribed. Indeed, it
would be completely untenable without some of the above limitations. However, the following
largely unacknowledged limitations and assumptions also bound Gaski’s critique and central
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proposition. They suggest compelling grounds for rejection of the idea that it would be
sufficient for a marketing manager faced with a decision that has ethical content to rely on
obeying the law and acting in his or her long-run commercial self-interest, without regard to
marketing ethics.
1. Moral judgement and ethical prescriptions. Normative marketing ethics is far more
than ethical prescriptions. Moral reasoning may identify ethical prescriptions but this is only
one role of the normative marketing ethics field among a number. For example, consistent with
Gaski’s definition of marketing ethics, moral judgement may be applied to marketing practice
using theories of moral philosophy. Indeed, many of the more complex issues of marketing
ethics cannot adequately be addressed by recourse to simple ethical prescriptions and require
these theories. Nonetheless, Gaski ignores prescriptions that might be developed through moral
judgement and the use of ethical theory that is widely discussed in the marketing ethics literature
(e.g., Duke et al. 1993; Ferrell, Gresham and Fraedrich 1989; Fritzsche 1985; Laczniak 1983;
Laczniak and Murphy 1993; Robin and Reidenbach 1986; Smith 1995; Smith and Quelch 1993;
Thompson 1995; Williams and Murphy 1990).
A key assumption, apparently, is that it is the principal role of normative marketing
ethics to develop prescriptions for marketing managers and that, indeed, this is possible to any
great extent and sufficient for marketing decision-making. Consider an ethical dilemma that
might present a manager with a choice between two alternative courses of action, both of which
would be consistent with the law and self-interest, but one alternative might be more ethical than
the other. However, this determination may not be the outcome of some formulaic application
of simple and extant ethical prescriptions, it is possible that it could only be reached through
moral judgement.
Ethical prescriptions are a small part of the nature and scope of marketing ethics overall.
A positive marketing ethicist might well argue that developing understanding of organizational
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ethical decision-making from a behavioral and social viewpoint is as important as trying to
determine normative prescriptions.
2. Self-Interest and Duties. Although Gaski may be able to point to moral duties evident
in the law, he can not so easily make this claim with respect to self-interest. Appeals to selfinterest are inevitably consequentialist. To suggest a marketing manager should not engage in
an act, such as not providing fair value for money spent, because it is contrary to his or her
economic self-interest, is an argument relying upon the adverse consequences of this behavior.
It ignores the deontological position that there may be duties independent of consequences.
From a deontological perspective, it could be claimed that a marketing manager has the moral
obligation of concern for the welfare of customers and others affected by his or her decisions.
Meeting this obligation may or may not be in the marketer’s self-interest. Regardless, there is a
moral duty to be fulfilled.
3. Where the law ends: assumptions made about the scope of the law. If the law is to
serve as a substitute for ethics, there must be assumptions made about its adequacy. Generally,
the law provides minimal standards, often prescribing negative injunctions, specifying what
should not be done that might otherwise lead to harm to others, rather than positive mandates
about what and how much should be done to improve human welfare. There are limits to what
the law can, has yet to, and should prescribe (Stone 1975). In most areas of public and private
life we expect individuals to go beyond the dictates of the law.
Gaski argues that many of the ethical prescriptions he identified are redundant with
specific U.S. laws. However, marketing managers are notoriously ill-informed about the law, in
part, as Petty (1999) notes, because of the relative scarcity of marketing law courses. Moreover,
in terms of parsimony, communicating its prescriptions may be a lengthier task than providing
simple ethical prescriptions that do not require legal details. The spirit of the law is often easier
to communicate than the letter of the law.
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Gaski largely avoids discussion about the effectiveness of managerial reliance on his
obey the law and/or act in your self-interest prescription. (Although at one point he does refer to
marketing managers making “more correct and efficient” decisions [p. 328].) However, if the
law is to serve as a substitute for ethical prescriptions, we might question its potential
effectiveness in promoting good conduct and doubt the supposed parsimony that Gaski claims.
This may also hold if reliance is placed on self-interest.
4. Limits to the imperative of customer satisfaction: assumptions made about an
alignment of the marketer’s self-interest with customer interests. Gaski also makes certain
assumptions about marketing in practice and ignores or understates the possibility of what
economists refer to as “market failures” and “externalities”. In particular, he relies on the
imperative of customer satisfaction, which may only hold under certain conditions, particularly
competitive markets. So, for example, in relation to customer entitlement to receive fair value
for money spent, Gaski observes that “it is in the marketer’s self-interest to provide value
proportional to price… customer satisfaction, which grows out of a satisfactory value/price ratio,
is almost universally necessary for marketer success” (p. 319). Many markets today are very
competitive, but this is not true of all markets. Monopolistic industries or quasi-monopolistic
positions in certain markets are more common, say, in Europe or Latin America but are not so
rare in the U.S., particularly in the more specialised areas of business-to-business marketing.
There is also an assumption of firms attempting to maximize customer satisfaction. We
may agree that “intentionally dissatisfying customers is incompatible with the definition of
marketing” (p. 319), but intentionally dissatisfying is not the same as less completely satisfying.
Firms are always trading-off potential profit and customer value as a function of competitive
conditions and other factors.
Moreover, Gaski specifically excludes situations where the marketer is not interested in
repeat purchase or where there are difficulties for potential customers to learn from dissatisfied
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customers. These situations also may not be so rare (e.g., a company exiting a business may
exploit short-term opportunities) and limit self-interest as a constraint on unethical conduct. He
also acknowledges that “marketing managers can make mistakes” (p. 328). Again, an
assumption that this situation is also relatively rare may not be warranted, as illustrated by the
mistakes about customer preferences of even the best-managed companies (e.g., New Coke).
5. Stakeholders other than customers: assumptions made about an alignment of interests
among stakeholders. Another set of problems arises from the possibility of a poor alignment of
interests. Customer satisfaction is no guarantee of good conduct where there are adverse
consequences for others (“stakeholders”) who are not party to the exchange (e.g., environmental
impacts of products and packaging). Acting in your economic self-interest is less effective as a
guideline when effects on stakeholders other than customers are considered. Further, individual
marketing manager self-interest and company self-interest may not be consistent, so a marketing
manager may make decisions that are counter to the requirement for customer satisfaction but
are in his or her own best interest (a perennial problem with brand managers).
Assessment of Gaski’s Proposition and Critique
Identifying the above limitations clarifies the extent to which Gaski’s proposition may be
appropriately applied and the validity of his critique of marketing ethics overall. In short, after
careful dissection, we must reject his proposition that the standard ethical prescriptions in the
field of marketing can be replaced by ‘obey the law’ and ‘act in your own self-interest’ as advice
to marketing managers. Aside from Gaski’s circular reasoning and acknowledged limitations,
we would need to make unwarranted assumptions about the scope of the law and an alignment
of manager self-interest with the customers and other stakeholders’ interests. We would also
need to assume that managers never face ethical dilemmas calling for moral judgement and
ignore their moral duties that exist independent of possible consequences. Accordingly, many of
Gaski’s inferences about the field and related criticisms also seem unwarranted.
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It is not disputed that many of the standard ethical prescriptions in the field of marketing
have substantial overlap with the law and enlightened self-interest and that the guidelines ‘obey
the law’ and ‘act in your own self-interest’ have some merit as advice to marketing managers.
Hence, Gaski’s proposition should not be entirely dismissed to the extent that it recognizes a
role for law and enlightened self-interest. The law and self-interest as guides to good conduct
are discussed further in the next section.
THE LAW AND SELF-INTEREST AS GUIDES TO GOOD CONDUCT
Ethics, the Law and Self-Interest Often Do Coincide
Marketing managers often are well advised to obey the law and act in their own longterm commercial self-interest; indeed, they are more likely to engage in good conduct if they
heed this advice. Marketing would be less frequently associated with unethical practices if these
guidelines were more commonly considered. In other words, ethics, the law and economic selfinterest often do coincide.
The general consistency of the law with ethics should not be surprising, as Gundlach and
Murphy (1993, p. 39) observe: “much of the law addressing exchange is drawn from and
formalizes moral principles.” Indeed, Gaski writes that “ethics may frequently pre-exist and
ground law” (p. 331). Given this role of ethics in forming a basis for the law, it seems
remarkable that Gaski should so summarily dismiss it.
That ethics may be consistent with self-interest is also not too surprising a claim. This
consistency is also well established and may be seen to pre-date the field of business ethics. The
first business ethics texts appeared in the late 1970s. Prior to business ethics courses, most
discussion in business schools of the moral problems of business was in business and society
courses. In vogue between the late 1960s and early 1980s, in both these courses and in business
itself, was the concept of corporate social responsibility.
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Concern about the moral problems of business is as old as business itself: Adam Smith's
The Wealth of Nations is a moral, as well as economic, treatise; Roman philosopher Cicero's De
Officiis discusses the moral duties of merchants. Not surprisingly, then, the notion that business
has social responsibilities was familiar to business leaders of the early 20th century, if not earlier.
Frederick (1994, p. 151) writes:
By the mid-1920s, business representatives and executives were beginning to speak of the
need for corporate directors to act as trustees for the interests, not just of stockholders, but
other social claimants as well… Corporate philanthropy, the history of which stretched
back into the 19th century, was accompanied by a growing belief that business and
society were linked together in organic, if not yet well understood, ways.
What differentiates the modern-day concept of corporate social responsibility from
earlier notions of social responsibility in business, is the recognition that business has an
obligation to society that goes beyond obedience to the law and the production and distribution
of goods and services at a profit. Further, it amounts to more than acts of philanthropy. This
distinction is evident from the summary of the central ideas of the CSR concept by Buchholz
(1991, p. 19):
While various definitions of social responsibility have been advocated, there seem to be
five key elements in most, if not all, of these definitions: 1) corporations have
responsibilities that go beyond the production of goods and services at a profit; 2) these
responsibilities involve helping to solve important social problems, especially those they
have helped create; 3) corporations have a broader constituency than stockholders alone;
4) corporations have impacts that go beyond simple marketplace transactions; and 5)
corporations serve a wider range of human values than can be captured by a sole focus
on economic values.
Hence, analysis of social responsibility in business was largely concerned with identifying
the obligations of business to society. Enlightened self-interest was the rationale to which its
proponents appealed, including business leaders. Firms were encouraged to practice corporate
social responsibility, even where it could not be clearly justified on the basis of cost and revenue
projections, because it was believed to be in their best long-term interest. Accordingly, some
proponents of corporate social responsibility have advanced a very broad conception of enlightened
16
self-interest. It has been suggested, for example, that firms should try and solve social problems
completely unrelated to their business activities, such as providing jobs to the hard-core
unemployed, because these problems might otherwise become detrimental to the overall business
climate (Simon, Powers and Gunnemann 1972).
CSR and the related concepts of corporate social responsiveness and corporate social
performance remain central considerations within the business and society field. Moreover, in
the late 1990s, many businesses have exhibited a renewed interest in CSR under the rubric of
“corporate citizenship”, with a focus on giving back to the societies of which they are part
through efforts to help solve pressing social problems, such as unemployment and inner-city
decay. Meanwhile, many issues of corporate social responsibility have become subsumed
within the broader topic of business ethics. The rationale of enlightened self-interest is recognized
within the field of business ethics and in practice, with many managers subscribing to the maxim
‘good ethics is good business’.
Limitations of a Reliance on the Law and Enlightened Self-Interest
While obey the law and act in your own long-term economic self-interest are, under most
circumstances, necessary, they are not sufficient as guidelines for good conduct in marketing. It
matters little whether few if any of the actual ethical prescriptions to be found in the extant
marketing ethics literature do reveal the inadequacy of reliance on Gaski’s law and self-interest
prescription. Without doubt, if marketing practice were to be solely guided by law and selfinterest, as Gaski appears to suggest, the likelihood of good conduct would be substantially
reduced. Marketing managers must also be guided by ethics.
In part, this is evident from the limitations to Gaski’s central proposition identified
above, particularly the unacknowledged assumptions about the adequacy of the law (its scope as
well as enforcement), the imperative of customer satisfaction, and effects on stakeholders other
than the customer. It is also evident from ethical prescriptions that can be found in the
17
marketing ethics literature that go beyond the law and self-interest, as discussed below. Further,
in some circumstances, the guidelines ‘obey the law’ and ‘act in your own self-interest’ may
even conflict with sound ethical prescriptions, extant or otherwise, and reduce the likelihood of
good conduct.
NORMATIVE MARKETING ETHICS AND GOOD CONDUCT
Ethical Prescriptions that Go Beyond the Law and Self-Interest
We might agree with Gaski were he to suggest that the ethical prescriptions he identifies
are largely consistent with the law and/or self-interest. The question then arises as to whether
there are ethical prescriptions that go substantially beyond the law and self-interest. Below are
some candidates from the extant marketing ethics literature that Gaski may have overlooked.
The purpose here is not to offer another inventory of the literature, but merely to offer examples
of ethical guidelines that can be found in the marketing ethics literature that clearly reflect
something more than the law or self-interest and, more important, explain in the following
section why that should be.
The American Marketing Association has a Code of Ethics for Marketing on the internet,
in addition to the general code that Gaski cites. This code, consistent with Goodwin (1991) and
others, refers to a consumer right to privacy. More specifically, it states: “Information collected
from customers should be confidential and used only for expressed purposes” (see
www.ama.org). This provision would appear to preclude undisclosed secondary use of data
collected from consumers, yet it is not a legal requirement nor is it necessarily consistent with
the individual marketer’s self-interest.
Robin and Reidenbach (1987) propose an approach whereby social responsibility and
ethics become part of the strategic marketing planning process through developing or
reformulating the corporate culture. Although their purpose is to identify a process for
introducing ethical and socially responsible core values into an organizational culture, they do
18
offer some normative guidelines, including the following: “by using the culturally established
values of an average family as a guide in determining what its reaction to society ought to be, an
organization can develop reasonable standards” (1987; emphasis in the original).
In line with this broad guideline of consistency with family values, Robin and
Reidenbach (1987) offer the following more specific guideline: “make and market products you
would feel comfortable and safe having your own family use.” This guideline is substantively
different from the guideline on product safety (“do not market harmful or dangerous products”)
that Gaski considers equivalent to a requirement to obey the law and/or act in your self-interest.
He writes in relation to this guideline: “As long as there is an expectation of economic loss from
bad behavior, that should be a deterrent augmenting the legal inhibition” (p. 318). Consider, for
example, a marketer who decides on ethical grounds not to market violent or sexually explicit
videogames. This decision may well be consistent with Robin and Reidenbach’s prescription
(and conceivably a result of the marketer attempting to reconcile his business life with his family
values). However, it is not necessarily consistent with the ethical prescription that Gaski
examines (the marketer may not believe that the videogames are harmful) or legal and/or selfinterest considerations.
Williams and Murphy (1990) suggest that ethical analysis in marketing could be
improved with a focus on the theory of virtue. Central concerns of such a theory are “what sort
of person am I shaping?” and “what sort of organization am I shaping?” (Williams and Murphy
1990, p. 24). Accordingly, Williams and Murphy (1990, p. 26) write: “The theory of virtue thus
highlights the need for marketers to consider how consumers are being affected by each product.
We suggest that marketers should not sell products that retard character or virtue development.”
Again, with the videogames example in mind, we might envisage how this guideline might go
beyond the requirements of the law and self-interest.
19
Thompson (1995) proposes a contextualist approach to marketing ethics. He rejects out
of hand the entire premise on which Gaski’s (1999) argument is based. He writes (1995, p. 187)
that “ethics is an orientation, that is, a way of thinking about and acting on ethical dilemmas…
moral reasoning cannot be reduced to a formulaic process of applying abstract principles that
guarantee moral outcomes.” Nonetheless, in identifying normative implications of his analysis,
Thompson (1995, p. 187) writes of “the need to foster a caring orientation in the conduct of
marketing ethics” (his emphasis), consistent with the work of Carol Gilligan. He writes (1995,
p. 187) of “a desire to be responsive to the interests of those likely to be affected.” This desire
will not necessarily be consistent with self-interest and the law.
Smith (1995) has proposed the consumer sovereignty test (CST) as a guideline that
managers can use to evaluate the ethics of many marketing decisions. In essence, the CST claims
that marketers have an obligation to consider whether consumers are capable of exercising
informed choice. Its domain is limited to corporate impacts on customers; therefore, the framework
does not directly address marketing impacts on other stakeholders. Moreover, it is not claimed that
the CST alone is a sufficient basis for evaluating the ethics of a marketing decision (see Smith 1995
for further limitations as well as the rationale for the CST).
Smith (1995, p. 92) writes that “the CST requires marketing managers to fulfill the promise
of marketing ideology; i.e., promoting the consumer’s interests… even without market pressure to
do so.” More specifically, the CST creates an obligation for marketers to examine whether
consumers whom their marketing programs target have capability, information, and choice. The
consumer capability dimension of the CST requires the manager to examine whether consumers are
vulnerable, perhaps due to age, education, or income. Hence, the manager would establish, for
example, whether a target market was fully capable of understanding the risks associated with a
product, going beyond legal requirements and perhaps to the firm's economic disadvantage by
excluding some potential consumers. The information dimension generally requires the manager to
20
determine whether the quality and availability of information to consumers is sufficient for them to
judge whether their expectations at purchase will be fulfilled. The choice dimension requires
managers to consider whether consumers have the option of going elsewhere, a function mainly of
the level of competition in the market and of any switching costs.
Consider the ethics of tobacco marketing. It is ethically problematic under two if not all
three dimensions of the CST. Most people start smoking in their early teens and thus there is
diminished consumer capability. Further, the addictive nature of tobacco diminishes consumer
choice. Finally, although there is generally abundant information about the adverse health effects
of smoking in developed countries, this is not so true of lesser-developed countries where many
tobacco companies are now focusing their marketing efforts.
Brenkert (1998) is also interested in consumer capability and the marketer’s obligations.
He has offered a particularly thoughtful analysis of the ethical issues raised by the unfairness
that can result from targeting vulnerable consumers. He advances the following guideline:
“marketers may not target those who are specially vulnerable in ways such that their marketing
campaign depends upon the vulnerabilities of that specially vulnerable group” (1998, p. 15). So,
in relation to marketing to children, he writes (1998, p. 16): “because children are cognitively
vulnerable due to their undeveloped abilities, any marketing done to children must be done in
ways that do not presuppose those vulnerabilities.” He argues that legal restrictions on
advertising to children are inadequate in the following way: “the FCC’s limit on the amount of
advertising on children’s television programming does not directly address this issue… the
content of those advertisements must be monitored” (p. 16).
The Need for Ethics
There is a need for ethics regardless of whether ethical prescriptions for marketing that
go beyond the law and self-interest can be identified (and regardless of whether ethics serves as
a foundation for the law). Another way of illustrating this need is to consider situations where
21
ethics, the law and self-interest are inconsistent, including situations where the law and selfinterest are not enough and ethics demands more of the marketing practitioner. This can be
illustrated very simply with a 2X2 matrix (see Figure 1). As shown in Cell A, decisions that are
inconsistent with ethics, and inconsistent with the law and/or self-interest are unlikely (though
marketing managers may be unsure of the law or their self-interest, managers’ decisions may
serve their interests but not those of the firm, and they do make mistakes). Decisions consistent
with ethics and consistent with the law and/or self-interest are unproblematic, as shown in Cell
D. However, more difficult are decisions that are consistent with the law and self-interest, but
might be unethical (Cell B). Also difficult are decisions that are consistent with ethics, but may
not be in one’s self-interest and/or may be inconsistent with the law (Cell C).
(See Figure 1 at the end of the document)
For examples of Cell B decisions consider advertising to children and testing products on
animals. Although there are legal restrictions on advertising to children, it is not generally
illegal. Nonetheless, as Paine (1993) shows, there are good ethical reasons for the criticism of
child-oriented television advertising. Paine questions whether young children (under the age of
eight) are appropriate targets for advertisers because they lack the conceptual abilities required
for making consumer decisions. Their immature conceptions of self, time, and money, mean
that children know little about their wants and preferences and how to use their economic
resources to satisfy them. Testing products on animals is not illegal and is often carried out even
when there is good knowledge about the product ingredient in question. However, there are
moral duties associated with the treatment of animals, not least because of their capacity for
suffering (Regan 1992). Other examples of Cell B decisions might include price gouging,
marketing of tobacco and firearms, and environmentally harmful products and packaging.iii
For examples of Cell C decisions consider the well-known recall of Tylenol by Johnson
and Johnson. At the time of the recall, it appeared to be a costly decision ($100 million) that
22
would kill the brand and was contrary to the advice of the FBI (Tedlow 1990). The recall was
not legally prescribed (though certainly it was not illegal) and did not appear to be in the firm’s
self-interest. It is only with hindsight that we know of the economic benefits to Johnson and
Johnson of the recall and can refer to this as a celebrated example of the maxim ‘good ethics is
good business’. As Ciulla (1991, p. 218) writes in relation to this example: “Doing the morally
right thing may be difficult and costly, but in the end, you win back the kingdom.”
As an alternative, consider the lesser-known example of Merck’s development and
distribution of an ‘orphan drug’ for river blindness (Business Enterprise Trust 1996). River
blindness, or onchocerciasis, is caused by a parasitic worm found by fast-flowing rivers in
certain parts of lesser-developed countries. In 1978, the World Health Organization estimated
that 340,000 people were blind because of onchocerciasis and 18 million or more were infected
with the parasite. There were no safe treatments and no financial incentives to develop drugs for
some of the world’s poorest populations. Merck’s discovery of ivermectin as a possible
treatment for river blindness, posed a dilemma. If development of the drug was successful, it
would generate little if any revenues and yet it could substantially improve the lives of many
people. Merck successfully developed the drug, known as Mectizan and then, unable to find
funding for its distribution, organized this as well. Again, the company’s actions in this instance
were not a result of following what the law or self-interest might appear to dictate.
Clearly, there is scope for content in marketing ethics that goes beyond the law and selfinterest. However, this content may not be most evident in the form of ethical prescriptions.
Ethical prescriptions may be useful as a starting point and in certain, relatively straightforward
situations. The complexity of many ethical issues in business often demands ethical theory,
from which, after all, the prescriptions were likely developed in the first place. Consider the
issue of bribery. Gaski observes, correctly, that “do not commit bribery” is an ethical
prescription that can be found in the marketing ethics literature and that bribery is generally
23
illegal.iv Nonetheless, there are occasions where bribery is morally defensible, as only the
application of ethical theory can reveal.
Deontological, consequentialist and social contract approaches have been used to show
that bribery is generally unethical. However, these ethical theories also reveal when bribery may
be morally permissible (Dunfee, Smith, and Ross 1999). From a deontological perspective, we
can identify a prima facie duty not to engage in bribery, but this duty might be overridden by
other more compelling duties (Pastin and Hooker 1980; Philips 1984). From a consequentialist
perspective, it has been argued that engaging in bribery may be morally justifiable for smaller
firms that would otherwise be subject to large harms (Green 1991). Dunfee, Smith and Ross
(1999) claim that bribery is much less likely to be morally permissible when analyzed using
Integrative Social Contracts Theory (than, say, deontological or consequentialist theories).
However, they allow that the payment of bribes under duress (extortion) may still be morally
permissible where corruption is widespread, weakly prosecuted and often associated with threats
of physical harm.
CONCLUSIONS
Despite his provocative critique of marketing ethics, Gaski explains that “it is not
asserted here that marketing ethics is universally coextensive with the law. Nor is it held that
marketing ethics is the same as self-interest. The conclusion is that the normative ethical rules
found in the existing marketing literature are sufficiently accounted for by the guidelines of law
and self-interest combined or aggregated” (his emphasis, p. 327). He does not dismiss ethics
out-of-hand either, suggesting that the “applicability of ethics… to other realms of human
activity is not being contested” (p. 327). Yet if his purpose is really to highlight the failings to
date of marketing ethics as a field, Gaski is still not convincing.
Nonetheless, and more important perhaps, Gaski’s critique may lead to serious
misconceptions about a field that is still not well understood by the broader field of marketing.
24
First, while obey the law and act in your enlightened self-interest have some merit as guidelines
to marketing managers, they merely point to a moral minimum—and even thus treated, have
exceptions, where ethics might point to decisions inconsistent with the law or self-interest.
Second, most societies expect their members to make decisions that go beyond the law and selfinterest and to include ethical considerations. Third, marketing managers are mature adult
members of society and sophisticated decision-makers who are surely capable of some moral
deliberation and this is often called for in marketing. Fourth, in terms of informing practice, it is
more important for normative marketing ethics to enable decision-makers to make better moral
judgements applicable to the specific and often complex situation they face than to offer an
inevitably limited list of general ethical prescriptions. Fifth, practice will be better informed
through ethical theory. To view the content of normative marketing ethics as ultimately
reducible to a series of ethical prescriptions fundamentally mistakes its role. Ethical
prescriptions are only one way of many by which both normative and positive marketing ethics
may inform marketing practice.
To be sure, there is much work to be done in normative marketing ethics. The emphasis
on positive ethics in the marketing ethics literature may well reflect the empirical orientation of
the marketing ethics field (particularly given the scope for empirical research of positive
theories), but the imbalance could usefully be redressed. These efforts could include the
development of ethical prescriptions that might offer some general advice to marketers, perhaps
along the lines of the examples identified above. However, more important is the development
of theories of marketing ethics that provide a basis for moral deliberation by practitioners and
others of the many complex and often troubling ethical issues found in marketing.
25
Figure 1: Ethics, the Law, and Self-Interest
Decision Consistent with the Law
and/or Self-interest
No
Yes
A
No
Unlikely
Decision
Consistent
with Ethics
Yes
B
E.g., animal testing,
advertising to
children
C
D
E.g., River
Blindness drug,
Tylenol recall
Unproblematic
26
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ENDNOTES
i
This reply will not speculate on possible reasons for the tone of some of Gaski’s comments. Suffice to note that
while it can be useful to be provocative, overstating the case weakens the argument overall.
ii
The methodological problems include concerns about demand effects that Gaski refers to but does not adequately
address. Respondents were asked to classify each ethical rule by indicating which of 4 categories best applies to it:
(A) rule is essentially a matter of ‘obey the law’; (B) rule is essentially a matter of ‘act in your self-interest,’ i.e., if
you don’t act ethically it will catch up with you; (C) both A and B; (D) neither A nor B. One concern is simply that
respondents were not given an explicit opportunity to categorize an ethical prescription as essentially a matter of
ethics; another is that, apparently, the categories were not rotated among respondents.
iii
For some of these examples it might be argued that firm self-interest is threatened by the possibility of consumer
boycotts. However, this may not be a credible or serious threat under many circumstances (see Smith 1990, pp.
257-266).
iv
Though as Noonan’s (1984) historical account shows, bribery was ethically proscribed long before legal
restrictions.
31