Ethics in Marketing

In this episode, Mikhail and Sylvie talk about gendered marketing – its evolutionary origins, how it can both benefit and harm consumers and brands, the ethical challenges it presents, and ways for brands to navigate them. Sylvie Borau is professor in marketing specializing in consumer psychology and applied ethics.

Data is the cornerstone of digital marketing. When it comes to ethics, it's arguably the most discussed topic -- collection and abuse of data, privacy, tracking, and so on. Stephane and I talk about these problems, but we also talk about what it means for businesses to adopt ethical practices. Is ethical marketing also more profitable for companies? And what if a more ethical approach reduces profit? These questions are not easy in marketing in a real-world environment, where profit is often the only goal and the pressure is strong.

We, marketers, walk around and look at everything around us from a marketing perspective. How this works and how that works. One type of marketing that is very prominent is nonprofit. But I didn't realize the full extent of messiness in this "niche" until I spoke with Tim. What kind of marketing is acceptable? Is it any different from quote-unquote usual marketing? Is it OK to A/B test images depicting war victims? How do people feel about spending donations on marketing? How do you balance transparency in marketing communication? There are many ethical concerns around marketing in the nonprofit sector and this is the topic of today's episode.

In this episode, Mikhail and Louis talk about ethical problems presented by the new technology used in marketing -- virtual reality, augmented reality, and the metaverse. In some way this is a bigger question of relationships between marketing and any new technology. If there are no rules on how new technology can be used in marketing, you know that some companies will use it in a predatory way. In many cases, such use of technology is very profitable. And other companies have no choice but to do something similar, or they will be out of business. This also applies to marketers on the individual level. If an unethical practice is widely spread and accepted in our profession, it makes it extremely hard for an ethical marketer to avoid doing it, which creates an internal psychological conflict.

In this episode, Mikhail and Harriet talk about a highly complex area of advertising and problematic content on the web. This conversation was recorded before the recent events at Twitter when unpredictable actions related to content moderation policies started to create a lot of anxiety for brands, and brand safety became a popular topic. We discussed the relationships between hate speech and disinformation and the advertising industry, how companies inadvertently fund problematic content on the internet, and where brand safety fits into this picture. Harriet is an activist, working at the intersection of advertising, climate change and misinformation. Her role at Media Bounty focuses on insight gathering and climate misinformation across a range of groundbreaking clients and projects from electric vehicles to green finance. She co-founded The Conscious Advertising Network with Jake Dubbins of Media Bounty in 2018 and has since seen it gain international recognition, work with the UN, and grow to over 150 members from Virgin Media O2 to Accenture Interactive. She’s a former Mozilla Fellow, working with Consumers International to map the opportunities and impacts of AI enhanced advertising, globally. Harriet Kingaby on LinkedIn -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/driescuijpers/ The Conscious Advertising Network -- https://www.consciousadnetwork.com/ The 7 CAN Manifestos -- https://www.consciousadnetwork.com/the-manifestos/

In this episode, Mikhail and Luiza talk about the role marketing and advertising play in the data privacy ecosystem, the other side of narrow targeting available to marketers on advertising platforms, the ethical implications of marketing activities built around data collection, harms to individuals and society produced by neglect of privacy, how to do marketing while respecting privacy, whether privacy can be a selling point, and more. Luiza graduated in Law from the University of São Paulo, completed her LLM at Tel Aviv University, and is currently doing her Ph.D. at Tel Aviv University on privacy and fairness. In 2020, she was awarded by the President of Israel the "President's Scholarship for Excellence in Science and Innovation" for her Ph.D. research, and in 2021, she received a Westin Scholar Award from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Luiza is the founder of The Privacy Whisperer, the largest independent privacy publication on the internet. You can follow her daily posts about privacy issues on Linkedin and on Twitter.

In this episode, Mikhail and Dries talk about a big grey area of persuasion techniques in digital marketing, specifically in social proof, personalization, advertising, and nudging. We also discuss the current state of regulations on all these topics, the legal bottom line marketers must keep in mind, and more. Dries is a lawyer and coordinator of the digital economy at the Consumer Division of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets. He has nearly 20 years of experience as an enforcement official in numerous economic sectors. He set up ACM’s Behavioural Insigths Team and managed the team for the first years. In recent years, he has worked at the OECD on consumer policy. He is a co-author of ACM’s Guidelines on the Protection of the Online Consumer. Dries Cuijpers on LinkedIn -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/driescuijpers/ Authority for Consumers and Markets -- https://www.acm.nl/en Guidelines on the protection of the online consumer mentioned in the episode can be found here -- https://www.acm.nl/en/publications/guidelines-protection-online-consumer

In this episode Mikhail and Ravit talk about potential risks that AI marketing tools present, ethical use of AI tools in marketing, AI in content creation, how to evaluate the ethics of an AI tool, how to avoid making the world worse inadvertently, how to market an AI solution ethically, and more. Ravit Dotan, PhD is a domain expert in AI ethics, specializing in moving AI ethics from talk to action and working in the private, academic, and non-profit sectors. She is VP of Responsible AI at The AI Responsibility Lab, where she scales and automates responsible AI. She is the Responsible AI Advocate at Bria.ai, where she is building and implementing the company's responsible AI strategy. In addition, she consults, researches, writes, and speaks about AI ethics. Ravit Dotan's website -- https://www.ravitdotan.com/ Ravit Dotan on LinkedIn -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravit-dotan/

In this episode Mikhail and Alice talk about ethical marketing, where manipulation in marketing originates, the use of psychology in marketing, boundaries between persuasion and manipulation, limitations to ethical marketing set by capitalism, marketing utopia, and more. Alice Karolina is a brand coach + strategist who has studied manipulation in sales in all its forms throughout her life. She created The Ethical Move out of a strong personal conviction to break the cycle of consumerism – which she believes is the root of our global crisis, and at the heart of true change. Realizing that our insatiability is created by psychological tactics in order to make a profit, she decided to find a way to break the spell. The Ethical Move seeks to open the door for a transparent, thriving marketplace that works for everyone. The Ethical Move -- https://www.theethicalmove.org/ Alice Karolina's website -- https://www.alicekarolina.com/ Alice Karolina on LinkedIn -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicekarolina/

In this episode Mikhail and Colin talk about dark patterns, different types of dark patterns and how marketers can recognize them, why companies use dark patterns, how to engage less in this type of manipulation, what to do if your company requires you to implement something you consider to be unethical and more. Colin M. Gray is an Associate Professor at Purdue University in the Department of Computer Graphics Technology and Associate Professor (by courtesy) in Learning Design & Technology in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. They are program lead for an undergraduate major and graduate concentration in UX Design. They hold appointments as Guest Professor at Beijing Normal University and Visiting Researcher at Newcastle University. Colin holds a PhD in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University Bloomington, a MEd in Educational Technology from University of South Carolina, and a MA in Graphic Design from Savannah College of Art & Design. They have worked as an art director, contract designer, and trainer, and their involvement in design work informs their research on design activity and how design capability is learned. Colin’s research focuses on the ways in which the pedagogy and practice of designers informs the development of design ability, particularly in relation to ethics, design knowledge, and learning experience. Their work crosses multiple disciplines, including human-computer interaction, instructional design and technology, design theory and education, and engineering and technology education. Resources: colingray.me darkpatterns.uxp2.com everydayethics.uxp2.com

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