Choose a business with which you are familiar (it could be your bank). Review the business’s website and, using Ethisphere’s five ethical dimensions, evaluate the marketing practices of the business. What are the best and worst aspects of the marketing activities of the business you are reviewing?

Each year, Ethisphere honours businesses all over the world for their businesses also often financially out-perform other similar businesses. ethical business standards and practices. They point out that these In 2016, the list included 131 companies from 21 countries and many varied industries – everything from automotive to telecommunications. You might be surprised to know – given the number of complaints made each year by customers of banks (the Financial Ombudsman Service receives thousands of disputes, many about banks – that a number of Australian banks have been recognised among the most ethical businesses in the world. How can a banker be ethical? Ethisphere’s approach to evaluating businesses’ ethical practices considers five ethical dimensions: (1) ethics and compliance programs, (2) corporate citizenship and responsibility, (3) culture of ethics, (4) governance and leadership, and (5) innovation and reputation (see ‘World’s most ethical companies® honorees’ at <https:// ethisphere.com/>).

❶ Choose a business with which you are familiar (it could be your bank). Review the business’s website and, using Ethisphere’s five ethical dimensions, evaluate the marketing practices of the business. What are the best and worst aspects of the marketing activities of the business you are reviewing? (Learning Objective 5) (AACSB: Use of IT; Ethical Reasoning)

Learning Objective 5. Explain the role of ethics in marketing. (pp. 457–60)

Increasingly, companies are responding to the need to provide company policies and guidelines to help their managers deal with questions of marketing ethics. Of course, even the best guidelines cannot resolve all the difficult ethical decisions that individuals and firms must make. But there are some principles that marketers can choose among. One principle states that such issues should be decided by the free market and legal system. A second, and more enlightened, principle puts responsibility not on the system but in the hands of individual companies and managers. Each firm and marketing manager must work out a philosophy of socially responsible and ethical behaviour. Under the sustainable marketing concept, managers must look beyond what is legal and allowable and develop standards based on personal integrity, corporate conscience and long- term consumer welfare