6 Ethical Problems With Marketing and What You Can Do Instead

Here’s some ways marketing professionals can transform the industry and use our skills to drive positive change

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Let’s be honest — marketing gets a bad rap doesn’t it?

And there’s no smoke without fire. The truth is there are a lot of ethically dubious or downright harmful practices in marketing. These problems put me off the field when I was a young graduate, but I’m glad I realised there are better ways of doing things and that marketing can even be a force for good. I’ve now been working in marketing and communications for about 7 years, in sustainable small businesses and nonprofits.

If you’re a marketer who wants to be ethical in your work, not only minimising harm but actively doing good, this is for you. Let’s explore 6 ethical problems in marketing and what we can do instead.

1. Lies and misinformation — be honest and transparent

This is probably the most basic one — bad marketing misleads people, which is dishonest.

An example which really gets under my skin is when mascara companies use false eyelashes in their ads. In 2017 due to using lash inserts and ‘post production techniques’ to exaggerate the effect way beyond what their so called ‘extreme volume’ mascara can do in real life. False advertising and unrealistic beauty standards for women in one shot— great.

There are millions of other ways brands are misleading or dishonest with their marketing, of course — many being much more consequential. And they all suck. It’s unethical, and it’s also bad for your brand. When people feel tricked, they lose trust in you. And due to years of shady tactics, consumers are more cynical than ever. If you need to twist the truth to get customers, then your product isn’t that great.

But hopefully you have a truly great product, right? So instead, be honest and straightforward about the product’s benefits for your customer.

2. Annoying unsolicited intrusions — talk to people who want to hear from you

We all find cold calls, junk mail and spam emails beyond annoying, right?

So why do companies still do this kind of marketing? I guess because it “works”. Even though the conversion rate is so small you’d need an electron microscope to see it, if you just pump out enough volume, you can get the absolute numbers up. But at what cost? This kind of marketing is always annoying and in the case of spam emails, not even legal. It’s a net negative for your audience.

But what about cold pitch emails or random LinkedIn DMs? While (respectful, targeted, using publicly available contact details) cold outreach can be part of a genuine and ethical marketing strategy, I still prefer to err more on the inbound side of marketing. I just think it’s better to market to people who actually want to hear from you.

Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. While outbound marketing interrupts your audience with content they don’t always want, inbound marketing forms connections they are looking for and solves problems they already have.

3. Manipulating people’s fears — focus on helping people meet genuine needs

So much marketing relies on making people feel insecure by manipulating their fears, and then sells them the solution to the ‘problem’ they just created.

This strategy has been used for a long time to expand and create demand for products. A historical example is how shaving cream companies ran to convince women that underarm hair — previously a non-issue — was actually grossly embarrassing. Today, to drum up insecurities about perfectly normal face shapes to promote plastic surgery.

Let’s be clear — this isn’t just about using emotion and psychology — which is the key to all effective marketing, and can be harmless. I’m talking about specifically honing in on people’s deep fears — fear of rejection, of social isolation, of not being good enough — and using those to make them start worrying about something pointless in order to sell a product.

This is obviously bad for people’s mental health and it also fuels unsustainable consumerism.

Instead, business and marketing should be meeting people’s genuine needs. Aren’t there enough of those? Find a problem that your audience is already struggling with and you can help with, and offer your product as the solution.

4. Driving rampant consumerism — focus on quality over quantity

One of the most systemic issues with marketing is that it drives consumerism — a constantly growing appetite for products which is unsustainable on our finite planet.

This is also emotionally unfulfilling, as consumerism seeks to fill emotional needs with material consumption. You may think this is unavoidable. “Of course marketers want you to buy things, duh!”.

But not all buying behaviour is consumerism.

It’s about the volume and pace of consumption, and it’s also about the intentionality and how much value is gained by the purchase. A customer buying a product they love that meets a genuine need and improves their life is not consumerism (in my view).

Your brand can avoid consumerism by focusing on high quality products rather than shifting huge volumes of cheap low quality products that don’t last. You can also focus on quality when it comes to your customers and leads— only focusing on those people who you are perfect for. Hyper focus on your target niche.

A company which has won many accolades for nailing this approach is Patagonia. From their high quality products to their values-driven branding to their now famous , they encapsulate this ‘less is more’ approach really well.

5. Greenwashing — be honest and authentic about progress

Greenwashing — when a company misleadingly makes itself and its products appear more sustainable than it is — has been under fire in recent years.

Consumers are ever more cynical and wary of corporate claims. And regulators are showing more teeth.

In the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority makes rulings against companies for misleading and unsubstantiated environmental claims. A digital marketing consultant and friend of mine, Slavina Dimitrova, does an excellent job of breaking down these cases on LinkedIn. for making misleading claims about its climate change work.

Companies still greenwash, but it’s getting much harder to get away with.

Instead, and in keeping with the broader trend towards valuing authenticity, it’s more ethical and more effective to own where you are on your sustainability journey. Consumers appreciate an honest and upfront approach, and this makes you seem more trustworthy.

So instead of claiming that your product is 100% sustainable (vague, unsubstantiated and unlikely) you could say that you source your cocoa from organic growers, your palm oil is RSPO certified and you are halfway through a project to trace all your ingredients back to the farm level. Bonus points if you create compelling storytelling about this process, including the challenges and setbacks as well as the wins, and shining a light on the wider industry and context.

6. Promoting unsustainable products — change business practices or refuse to work with them

I left my most controversial point till last, so here goes.

If the product or business is fundamentally unsustainable, and they are not in the process of meaningfully changing it, then as ethical marketers I think we should walk away and not work for them.

I know that probably sounds harsh, and that not everyone has the luxury of turning down paying work. Unfortunately it is a kind of privilege — but if you are able to, I think it’s the right thing to do.

Marketing is extremely powerful, and your skills matter to the company’s success. And by withholding your labour you are sending a strong signal that certain brands are not socially acceptable.

For example, is a pledge for marketers and PRs to never work with fossil fuel industry clients. You might want to extend this to other industries or brands, according to your own values. as marketing according to your own ethics.

Final thoughts

Writing this piece I was struck by how symbiotic some of this is. By being ultra targeted to your niche and taking a ‘quality over quantity’ approach to everything you do, you naturally address quite a few of these points at once. Same with honesty and transparency.

Another key takeaway — so much of this is about business strategy. Meaning the marketing department simply cannot do ethical marketing if the wider business isn’t on board. (And if you try to force it, you may even run into the greenwashing trap). That’s why point 6 is important too.

If you liked this, you might like my previous article on how marketing can help us address the climate crisis:

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