My big problem with the idea of “Ethical Marketing” and why it actually matters
Spoiler: This post is not at all about marketing.
Because marketing is not the problem.
That’s why.
Marketing is just a tool.
Business is just a tool.
And our judgments around actions and behaviors are profoundly and perpetually subjective.
So when you say one marketing strategy is ethical and another is not, what you’re actually saying is that YOU, as the marketer, are ethical - and others are not.
And when you have decided that what YOU’RE doing is ethical, then you stop having to be responsible and accountable for your behavior. Because you’re ethical, after all.
*This is where this post stops being about marketing.*
But ethics are not simple. They are not black and white. They are not straightforward. And they are definitely not static. They change with and for the context they occupy and the times they are applied in. Moreover, what is ethical for one could be unethical for the person standing right next to them.
Five minutes of light research and you’ll find that Wikipedia lists seventy-four primary ethical theories. Under each are their many (many) sub-categories. Human beings have been banging their heads against the philosophical question of, “What is ethical?” for thousands of years.
And the rather unfortunate short answer is that, overwhelmingly, we as individuals have determined that what is ethical is what feels right in the moment.
Disappointingly, it also tends to mean choices and paths that don't require significant personal sacrifice. And that don’t ask us to redefine the archetypal, singular version of how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen.
For most people, our public ethical stance is rather absolute and unflinching. It does not allow for the plurality of what actually makes up the different parts of ourselves.
But when you say what you’re doing is ethical, you make yourself and your work an arbiter of goodness without necessarily BEING an arbiter of goodness.
Essentially, if I just tell you how what I’m doing is right and what other people are doing is wrong, you can feel right and good about everything I’m teaching you and thereby have permission to do your life and your work however I tell you to because now you’re doing it the ‘good’ way - fruit of the righteous tree, as it were (hello religion, nice to meet you).
Because I said so. And I’m ethical.
(As host of a podcast called Good Business, I’m sitting in hypocrisy soup right now. This is not lost on me. Do I have some moral ambiguity on my face?)
So back to marketing for a second.
What makes some people attracted to the idea of ethical business or ethical marketing?
Why does that seem like a good thing to do for some and not for others?
My best guess, based on my not insignificant direct experience with people who need to market things but who don’t really want to, is that people who get into business from a passion-based place - helpers, healers, artists, etc… feel icky about selling. They didn’t get into business to BE in business. They got into business to do something they loved. Making money is an annoying afterthought. And since BEING sold to feels pushy and confronting a lot of the time, selling and marketing and business-doing all gets conflated into a giant pile of stinky crap that’s just in the way of doing all the good things.
So when someone says, “I’ll teach you the ethical way to do this so it doesn’t feel yucky anymore,” that sounds pretty swell.
But is it?
How do you know?
Whose ethics are we measuring this by?
Who’s to say that the tactics one might say is ethical and good isn’t predatory and manipulative to someone else?
One example of this - a friend of mine named her business XYZ (not the actual name). She did a trademark search when she named it. Free and clear. All good. A couple years later, she gets a cease and desist letter from a company that is in no way competition, but who wants to use XYZ and says they had it a month sooner.
Annoying and frustrating, but on the surface, just a trademark dispute. They happen all the time.
But here’s the kicker. My friend’s business specifically supports the work of a disadvantaged group in their business endeavors. She is arguably doing good work and is in an ethical business.
The company that sent the letter operates by certifying businesses owned by the very same disadvantaged group as a way of promoting them more effectively in the world. Were it not for the cease and desist letter, one would look at their business as being super ethical, super heart-in-the-right-place. They give to good causes. They are owned by people who display their pronouns. They are the ‘good people’. The ‘ethical business owners’.
Unless you’re in their way, apparently.
So does this one thing make them unethical? Probably not. To them, they are the wronged party. To them, they are ethically standing up for their brand. Many people from other vantage points would see them as ethical and inspiring leaders who are fighting the good fight. And they probably are.
Unless you’re the one getting the cease and desist letter.
Then ethical is probably not the word you might use.
Predatory. Manipulative. Cash-grabbing.
Hypocrites.
That last one is the important one because in recent cultural history, goodness and ethical behavior has come to mean the absence of hypocrisy. Most debates between people you disagree with eventually point out that the person holding themselves up on the pedestal is not, in fact infallible, and with a little creative interpretation, they can often be found to be guilty of the very thing they are railing against.
As if it’s possible to be any other way.
As if it’s possible to hold a stain-free moral high-ground.
As if it’s possible to actually be ethical as a blanket way of existing that could be judged as such from any and every angle.
It is an impossible standard that absolutely no one has ever met. We all live in degrees of moral ambiguity. Leaning one way or another, making small adjustments to our values and viewpoints based on how they affect ourselves and whomever we choose to value highest along the way.
For every good action, one can always find a counterpoint.
For every dollar you give to support an environmental good cause, there are the heavy metals and environmental calamity caused by the very device you process your 1% for the environment payment on.
For every vote you cast in support for what you feel is right and good, there are the people who will feel victimized by your choice.
We are all hypocrites. We just judge our compromises differently. We each decide what cocktail of values and priorities we choose to adhere to and which we rationalize as being unnecessary.
And then we all pretend that’s not happening.
Good. Bad. Simple.
But no one thinks they are on the bad side. Sort of like how no one is ever a terrible driver. I mean have you ever had a conversation with someone where they said, “I rear-ended someone on the freeway today because I was texting and instead of pulling over, I thought it would be better if I just stopped in the middle of the freeway and got out of my car so I could walk my dog. I know, I am a terrible driver.”
But yet, someone actually does dumb crap like that. LOT’S of someones, in fact. Anyone who has ever driven in Atlanta or LA knows exactly what I’m talking about.
I can’t begin to tell you how many business owners I know personally who absolutely feel like they are helping people (and maybe they are), and who sell their stuff by deploying incredibly high-pressure tactics, disregarding the physiological effects that those tactics have on the nervous system and decision-making capacity of the very people they want to help. All because somewhere along the way, another marketer on another sales page said something like, “You can’t help anybody if they don’t know you exist,” then selling them on the idea that THAT gives them carte blanche to deploy absolutely any tactic available to get more people in the door. Because, “....they can always say no…” after all.
Except when they can’t because you have completely short-circuited their ability to think objectively via a sweet cocktail of hypnotic language, false urgency, fear of missing out, and weaponized hope.
And that’s how really good people become really manipulative marketers. And how really manipulative marketers become millionaires.
An individual’s ethics are their individual values divided by rationalization and social validation.
The more social validation you have for your choices, the easier it is to rationalize a shift in your ethics.
After all…
“You have to feed your kids.”
“You have to put your own mask on first.”
“No one else is going to promote you. YOU have to tell the world about how amazing you are.”
Once you agree with all of those things and the outcome is something you really really want, your values and your ethics start to bend to align with whatever is the most effective tactic to get you to that outcome.
Much of traditional marketing, selling, and media messaging is designed to take these rationalizations and use them as bricks to wall you off from your clients and customers. The less you have to look at the people you're selling to, the easier and easier it becomes to see them as leads and metrics instead of people who also want to feed their kids - who also want to put their own mask on first - who also want to matter in the world.
Capitalism has, thus far, relied almost entirely on the opacity of transactional relationships. If you can’t see who you’re hurting, their pain stops existing as a problem that needs solving.
I promise you, if you had to sit next to the woman who sews your jeans for 18 hours a day, fast fashion might feel more like a critical problem worth solving.
Some of us know this and wrestle with it more than others (while, again, making our own rationalizations and justifications). We are the ones who like the idea of ethical marketing. It feels right. Like a way to wrap our good work in good marketing. And maybe it will.
But it definitely won’t if you aren’t ALSO critically looking at whether what you’re doing is just the same thing as everyone else in a warmer, fuzzier package that lets you off the hook for simply finding kinder, less opaque ways of doing business.
Marketing is not ethical or unethical. It just is. It’s communication and persuasion. Invitation and introduction.
For those of us who see ourselves as being on the ‘good’ side of capitalism, how we judge marketing is based entirely on how it makes us feel. If we can make people feel informed, empowered, and heard - well, that seems like a good thing.
If we make them feel urgency, pressure, and fear - well, that seems like a bad thing.
And if you don’t actually know how your marketing makes people feel, maybe it’s time to ask them. Metrics do not measure this. Surveys are nearly always biased. Just ask. Pick a few people and ask. Like a human.
I honestly do not entirely know what is ethical and what isn’t when it comes to marketing (for all the aforementioned reasons). But I know what makes people feel good about buying from me and what doesn’t. And I know what makes people feel good about buying from other people and what doesn’t.
Now after all that, I bet (if you made it this far), you are presently thinking of all the ways I’m wrong. You’re poking holes in my argument in your mind.
You’re thinking, “No. Some things are just right and wrong. It’s NOT all relative.”
And there’s the paradox of ethics and morality. There is always another argument to be had, another nuance to be explored. Another closely-held belief that really does not want to be deconstructed. Another emerging philosophy that attempts to define and quantify a way to crystallize our responsibility to one another.
As far as I can tell (à la Ethical Philosophy according to me), good humans care about whether or not a significant number of people think they are being an asshole and they attempt to self-reflect and make changes to do less harm. Shitty people don’t. They dig their heels in and refuse to even contemplate their own beliefs and behaviors.
I bet you can think of at least five reasons I’m wrong right off the top of your head. If I stop and play the other side I can too. Which is why I regard all of this stuff as malleable. Open to evolution. Open to changing times. Ethical leadership SHOULD be open to changing course and making the next right decision based on the context of the moment and the prevailing wisdom therein.
It’s not that hard to feel good about marketing - or humaning, for that matter. Be kind to as many people as you can in every choice. Ask questions. Seek understanding. Aspire to do as little harm as possible. Solve real problems. Ask permission. Be honest.
There. Now you know how to be ethical. That is, if ethical means the exact same thing to me as it does to you.
Does it?
“……..”
Exactly.