Ethics In Marketing by Moses Isaac

The Road To Your Success : Providing Value To Others

In the business world, we learn a lot about cut throat competition and gaining advantage over the competitor. In some circles, it seem to be a game to see how best to cheat your customers.

These are the concepts of win-lose marketing, and believe the kind of thinking is a dinosaur; it wont survive.

1.Consumers avoid buying from companies they perceive as unethical.

A 1999 survey of consumers in 23 countries by Environics International, in co-operation with the Prince Of Wales Business Leaders Forum and the conference board, found that 40 percent of consumers had considered punishing a company based on its social actions, and nearly 20 percent had actually avoided a company's products because of its social actions. A 1998 study commissioned by the U.K. based co-operative wholesale services found that 60 percent of retails food customer, even in the absence of an organised boycott, have avoided a shop or product they associated with unethical behaviour.

2.Customer Prefer To Buy From Companies That Support Their Social Agenda

A 1997 study by Walker Research found that when price and quality are equal 70 percent of consumers would switch brands or retailers to a company associated with a good cause. Criteria frequently cited by consumers as affecting their purchasing decisions include environmental responsibility, community philanthropy, and avoiding the use of "Sweatshop" or child labor. Many consumers also actively support companies that court business from their ethinic or subculture group. African-American control $320.6 billion in discretionary spending; Latino-Americans control $261.2 billion people with disabilities, 176 billion. Gay and Lesbian power is about $ 400 billion.

Another growing area of company interest is cause related marketing, in which companies align with charities or causes in a marketing campaign. Such campaigns have become in increasingly common as consumers become more accepting of the concept. Many companies, the question is no longer whether to participate in cause related marketing, but which cause to embrace.

3.Investors Have Shifted 13 percent Of All Investment Dollars Into Socially Responsible Companies.

In November 1999, the social Investment Forum reported that more than $2 trillion was invested in the United States in funds identified as socially responsible, an increase of 82 percent from 1997 levels. This represent roughly 13 percent of the $16.3 trillion under professional management in the U.S or one out of every eight dollars.

It is a radical new way of looking at the world.

Spend some time with this Blog you may find that you no longer live in a dog-eat-dog world-and that in fact, when the dogs learn to work together, they can accomplish much more than any of them could on their own. Think of the incredible weight a team of sled dogs can comfortably pull accross the snow; no one dog could accomplish that. And thus, when you join forces with others - even those you have been trained to think of as your competitors - truly amazing things can happen.

The Magic Triangle : Quality, Integrity, Honesty.

Ready for the big principle? It is not a secret at all, just a simple truth. But it is crucial. Here it is.

Create Value For Others In Everything That You Do.

Thats the "magic formula"!, you help yourself best when you are helping others. And the way you do that is by basing your business on a solid foundation of three principles.

Quality, Integrity, Honesty.

Quality

Provide the best value you can.

Integrity.

Run your business in alignment with your core values; dont try to be something you are not.

Honesty

Value the truth and be eager to share with your prospects and customers - even if it means that your solution is not the best of them right now - in other words, it may not be appropriate for a particular prospect to become a customer at this time.

As for honesty - it not only feels like the right thing, It's also good for business.

Who Wins You When You Market, With Quality, Integrity And Honesty.

Usually, everybody. Your customers or clients realise you're not trying to cheat them. And they will so value the experience of being treated well that they will come back again and again. They even tell others.

Your suppliers will relate to your honesty and integrity, to the knowledge that you understand that they and you are partners Who can both go farther by helping each other.

Your Competitor benefit too, especially if they see that your ethical behaviour opens the way for them to improve their own operating standards. As you make space in the market for quality, integrity and honesty you begin to see each other less as rivals and more as people who can work together to make things better and we'll see a little latter that with this co-operative model, you can help each other in many ways.

Moses Isaac