In Brands I Trust......Issues of Ethical and Socially Responsible Brand Behaviour.

Every time there is a major controversy over serious quality issues related to health, safety or performance of well known brands, high decibel debates are triggered on responsible marketing and ethical and legal issues involving consumer interests. The controversies related to lead content of Maggie noodles, Volkswagon emission norms, pesticides in Coke, worms in Cadbury's, Honda and GM car recalls etc being cases in point. These are serious issues with immediate health and safety impact and therefore get highlighted. But if one were to pause and look around at brand activities and communication on an everyday basis one can find many instances of questionable practices being adopted and espoused by marketers. Questionable not so much from the point of view of illegality but questionable in respect of what responsible brand behaviour needs to be.

Well known brands we are familiar with and specially those which are marketed by well established domestic and multi-national companies usually inspire trust from the consumers.  One of the advantages of having a strong brand is the desired associations of trust and belief in the brand. But is this trust liable to misuse? Do brands get tempted to stray outside the bounds of strictly ethical marketing behaviour? Do all marketers consciously look at the consequences of their messaging or communication on sections of society?

Consumers tend to be cautious when dealing with claims made by fly- by- night operators and local brands, often not accepting them at face value and reacting with a healthy dose of scepticism. But when well established brands from reputed companies with enduring and strong customer relationships tread the grey area of unethical behaviour, the consumers are more vulnerable because there is implicit trust in these brands and therefore a more ready acceptance and adoption of their messaging. When brands take advantage of their strong position and reputation to claim something that is not true or to propagate social behaviour which may not be very desirable, it is a serious issue and one which is not often highlighted.

It is not always easy to define what constitutes responsible or ethical behaviour. Ethics is often a grey zone and one that is constantly evolving. Ethical marketing has been defined by The American Marketing Association’s (AMA) as follows-

• Standards of marketing decision making based on "what is right" and "what is wrong," and emanating from our religious heritage and our traditions of social, political, and economic freedom. (legislation definition)

•    The use of moral codes, values, and standards to determine whether marketing actions are good or evil, right or wrong. Often standards are based on professional or association codes of ethics. (environments definition)

Basically marketing ethics can be looked upon as a philosophy or an approach which encompasses honesty, fairness, and responsibility in the context of desired norms of behaviour or social practices.

Since unethical may not be illegal, brands have not been averse to using unethical means to gain/ strengthen their market position. Some of the ways in which brands can be unethical or irresponsible include the following-

1)      Making mis-leading claims

The recent Volkswagon reports of misleading claims and manipulation of emission norms tests, has created a lot of news. Here is a big organization with stellar brands deliberately making false claims to push their products in the market. Consumers across social media commented on how shocked they were – not so much about the fact that such a thing happened but more that it was a brand like Volkswagon which did it!

Another instance is that of Tide Naturals. In 2010, a case was filed against Tide Naturals for making claims that its washing powder contained Lemon and Sandalwood (chandan) when it fact it contained only the fragrance. The first instinctive reaction of a consumer is that Tide is a well known brand from a company like P&G therefore they would not cheat customers. But the tragedy is that, this in fact is what they seem to have set out to do. Well perhaps cheat is too strong a word but one can certainly say that the claims made by the company were misleading. Their advertisement had shots of chandan being ground and slices of lime which all become the pack at the end suggesting that these were key ingredients of the product. The claim made on the Tide pack was “the freshness of lemon and chandan”. The name “Tide Naturals’ also indicates that the product has natural ingredients. Put together these elements clearly implied that the Tide powder contained natural lemon and chandan. The Madras high court then asked Procter and Gamble Home Products Ltd (P&G) to modify its Tide Natural advertisement as it was misleading consumers with the claim that the detergent contains natural ingredients. As a result P&G had to add a disclaimer to the pack stating,” Does Not Contain Lemon and Chandan’! So the legal aspect was resolved. But the bigger concern here is the ethical issue. The company seems to have deliberately created an ad which would lead to an interpretation of natural ingredients in the pack. They did not state freshness like that of lemon and chandan they said freshness of lemon and chandan, the TVC had shots of the actual ingredients and not till the court order forced them to did they state clearly that the product does not contain these ingredients.

 2)      Circumventing laws and guidelines

For years we have seen people in lab coats recommending products ranging from toothpastes and soaps to health drinks, leveraging perceptions of source credibility and expertise to convey the benefits of these products. In India actual doctors are not used in commercials because it is against the law to do so. However Sensodyne from GSK neatly sidestepped the legal provisions and even touted it as a great creative idea. The Sensodyne toothpaste commercial by GSK shows a dentist recommending this brand for sensitive teeth. Since Indian laws do not permit doctors to endorse brands, a young dentist practising in the UK was shown recommending the brand as a solution to sharp pain faced by people with sensitivity issues. Is it illegal? No. At least not in letter of the law, but it is definitely against the spirit of the law and therefore unethical because it is taking advantage of a legal loophole to circumvent a guideline made to safeguard the interests of consumers.

3)      Promoting beliefs/behaviour which is not socially responsible/desirable

Many times in order to promote their points of differentiation or create demand for their product marketers tend to depict social behaviour which may not be very desirable or appropriate or may re-enforce, stereotypical archaic thinking on gender/ familial roles.

Personally I find the Lifebouy advertisement on the theme of “tera sabun slow hai kya?” a little disturbing. Health organizations have worked very hard across the world to educate people that proper washing of hands involves the rubbing action and once must rub soap properly in all directions and then was it off completely. At home mothers try hard to inculcate this habit in children telling them not to rush and to ensure that soap is lathered and rubbed on all sides while washing hands. However the Lifebouy commercial shows a bunch of kids quickly washing their hands in a few seconds and making fun of a little boy who is diligently scrubbing his hands and therefore taking a longer time. They laugh at him asking him if his soap is slow to work? They may have leveraged consumer insight that children look at hand washing as a chore and would rather do it quickly and get away, but is this the right habit we want to inculcate in our children? No matter how good the soap, unless it is properly applied all over, it cannot clean effectively. So why create this push to influence children to wash their hands hurriedly? Can they at this impressionable age determine how quick the wash should be –that it can be just a little quicker than what they do now but not so quick as to not clean properly? To them a quick wash implies a quick wash- take a bit of soap, splash with water and run off!

Another commercial which falls in this category is one of the initial ads for Clinic long and strong ad where a young girl is sad because she cannot have long hair because she has a working mother who cannot spare the time or make the effort for her daughter’s sake! Really? In this day and age, these are the beliefs the brand is propounding? Should little children be brought up believing that their desires will be thwarted if they have working mothers?

These issues may seem trivial at first glance but we must remember that ads while reflecting societal beliefs also play a key role in shaping and influencing these beliefs and therefore brands need to tread very carefully on this terrain. It is understandable that brand managers are under tremendous pressure to deliver results in increasingly competitive markets with they work very hard to gain consumer insights and translate that into competitive advantage. But while they do this it is also important to ensure that the brand stays true and loyal to the consumers interest and does not cross the boundary of ethical and responsible behaviour. A relationship built on false pretensions is likely to be shaken at some point in time.