Dr. Ian Malcolm, Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurassic Park, succinctly laid out the need for ethics in science: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.” There have been so many questionable advertising and marketing campaigns over the years that you could replace the word “scientist” with “marketers.” Marketing also needs ethics, or a way to prioritize “should we?” over “could we?”

“Unethical marketing” brings to mind those cigarette ads from the 1950s in which doctors claim that Camels don’t irritate your throat, or worse, Nestle’s 1980s infant formula marketing campaign that involved women posing as nurses pitching formula to new mothers in hospitals in low-income countries lacking in sources of clean water, a campaign that may have led to the deaths of as many as 200,000 children. Unethical marketing ranges from the ill-advised to the truly tragic, but the line between “ethical” and “unethical” isn’t always this clear.

These kinds of unethical marketing tactics aren’t a thing of the past, either. We live in an age of spam and scams, of grifters and hucksters, of fake businesses that take your credit card information one day and take their website offline the next. It used to be that marketing had to only break through the noise of the competition. Now, marketing has to break through the layer of mistrust that pervades our society thanks to these bad actors. If you want trust, you have to demonstrate that you are trustworthy. To be trustworthy, you have to develop a code of ethics and live by it every day.

What Are Marketing Ethics?

Marketing ethics are the principles that guide your marketing strategy. Ethics go beyond simply staying in compliance with applicable laws and regulations. There are plenty of ways to play a game within the rules that skirt the principles of good sportsmanship. Ethics are the principles that keep you from using the rules in ways that feel unfair to other participants.

Ethical behavior shows respect for your industry, your peers, and your consumers. How do you show respect? Through honest dealing and treating people as equals, not as subjects to be manipulated. By taking responsibility for mistakes and making it right in a meaningful way. By collecting customer feedback and taking meaningful action to redress customer concerns. By being transparent about how you collect and use customer data.

Why Do Marketing Ethics Matter?

Ancient Greek rhetoricians developed principles of persuasive speech that hold true to this day. A speaker can convince an audience of the validity of an argument in three ways: by what the Greeks called an appeal to logos (logic, well-reasoned arguments, factual information), an appeal to pathos (swaying the audience’s emotions), or an appeal to ethos (establishing credibility as an expert and trustworthy speaker).

We all want to believe that we’re only convinced by appeals to logos—facts and logic—but the reality is that we all drift upon the tides of emotion. It’s often the case that no amount of factual evidence to the contrary can overcome a bad first impression. The ick factor is truly that powerful. That’s because out of the three rhetorical appeals, the appeal to emotion happens inside the listener. The speaker’s argument is subject to rational evaluation and verification against evidence (logos), and it is the speaker himself that you find trustworthy or not (ethos). It is you, the audience, who feels the emotional impact of the message before you even get a chance to think about why you feel the way you do or whether or not the speaker is actually trustworthy and honest.

Emotional appeals can be used ethically or unethically. This is where we have to ask ourselves not if we could, but if we should. We could create FOMO, and it often works. We could create deceptive patterns in user interfaces. We could advertise our low first month subscription rate and leave the price increase and the fact that you can’t cancel in the fine print. 

These manipulative tactics work, but they don’t work forever. People catch on eventually to the fact that they’re being manipulated, and they tend not to appreciate it. Ethical marketing might not stir people into a frenzy or go viral, but it will generate honest engagement and long-term loyalty. Since it costs more to convert a new customer than to keep an old one, a business that intends to grow and thrive over the long term should stick to ethically sound marketing methods.

Gray Areas

It’s rare to come across examples, like the ones at the beginning of this article, that are clearly, unequivocally unethical. There is a vast gray area between ethical and unethical, and what’s unethical in one situation might be acceptable in another. Many unethical digital marketing techniques, like click farming and keyword stuffing, have been rendered largely ineffective by changes in the way search engines rank pages. But many more “black hat” marketing techniques still get used because they are effective.

Marketing that skirts the line between ethical and unethical might result in a short-term bump in sales, but what’s more certain is the long-term reputational damage that will ensue when the public gets wind of the truth or grows tired of gimmicks. While you might see nothing wrong with ethically gray marketing techniques, it is those tested, tried-and-true, transparent methods that are going to build loyalty and grant the greatest long-term growth.

Ethical Behavior Builds Brand Loyalty

In a world where trust is harder to come by, marketing ethics make it easier for your customers to trust you. It’s the kind of customer-centric approach that builds loyalty and turns customers into brand ambassadors. In a world where people feel like everyone is out to get them, be the business customers can trust.