Blog Post #1

Since beginning my marketing and public relations internship at Classic Media, I have learned a lot about the business of marketing. I’ve actually become quite interested, as marketing has many elements to it. Marketing is not only promoting and spreading the news about a product or idea, but also creating marketing materials for that purpose. Regardless to say, I’ve become more open-minded at the possibility of choosing marketing as a career path. With that being said, marketing, like many other professions, comes with ethical dilemmas. Thankfully, at Classic Media, I have not personally come across any ethical controversies. However, I can certainly think of a few scenarios that would be very probable in the field.

Why are models in magazine advertisements so skinny? Why are they never average weight or a few pounds overweight? Being skinny was never important many years, yet today, is all the craze? Diet pills and other weight loss products make up a billion dollar industry. Where and when did super skinny become a trend? I’m honestly not sure but something tells me marketing has something to do with it. When Abercrombie and Fitch use very skinny models half naked in their advertisements, they are no longer just marketing their product they are marketing an image. I think that’s where marketing ethics comes in and becomes a factor. Abercrombie and Fitch is no stranger to marketing ethics. In fact, not too long ago, Abercrombie and Fitch marketed push-up bra bikini tops to young girls. Many people became outraged. Abercrombie and Fitch, in my opinion of course, are pushing the ethics boundary. Marketing an adult product and disguising it as a child’s product is just well, unethical to me. This product is marketed to 7 and 8 year old girls. In my opinion, they are pushing young girls to be sexualized people way too early in life.

Abercrombie and Fitch heard the criticism but refused to pull the product. To me, in a situation like this, Abercrombie and Fitch should not only pull the product, but also make a public apology. The thing that outrages me the most, is that these marketing professionals should have more ethical guidelines than to market a product like that. They are the adults. Adults are the ones that are supposed to be watching out for our youth, not promoting sex because well everyone knows sex sells. We are supposed to be the grown-ups. As an adult, you should already have the tools to make responsible decisions, like a conscience, common sense, and the most important, values. Values is essentially the most important tool that keeps society in check and helps with ethical decision making.

I’ve learned a lot about business ethics from school and real-life experiences. The most important lesson I’ve learned, is that not everyone has the same ethical guidelines. Maybe, deep down inside the chief marketing coordinator really doesn’t see an issue in these push-up bikini tops. Honestly, you never really know. It is important that we all understand that this is a free country, and we do have rights, and a majority of what makes this country so great, is the fact that we have so many different people living here with different values and opinions.

So I guess that is the ultimate issue. At what point do ethics cross into legal issues? I guess that’s a great question for this Media Ethics course, huh?