Discrimination?
Topic: Marketing Management, Advertising and Selling.
Characters: Anja: Brand Manager for floor cleaning system.
Hugo: Assistant Brand Manager
Characters: Anja: Brand Manager for floor cleaning system.
Hugo: Assistant Brand Manager
Anja is a Brand Manager at a large consumer goods company. The position is one that Hugo aspires to. Anja has spent the last six months working on an important new marketing plan for a floor cleaning system. Anja’s superior has approved the plan and believes that successful execution of it would likely result in Anja’s being promoted to a different, more desirable product line.
It bothers Hugo that the marketing plan calls for the product to be associated with a series of spokespersons who are physically unattractive. He feels this plan promulgates a stereotype which results in discrimination that hurts people born with lower physical attractiveness. Anja (a very physically attractive young woman) feels strongly that persons of less physical attractiveness are the most credible for this product. In fact, Anja supports this notion with a specific article in a top marketing journal. The article reports empirical evidence showing that it is financially advantageous to use physically unattractive spokespersons when marketing mundane products (such as those for cleaning and cooking). One advertising agency has made a parody of this in the commercial for ‘Plenty’ using Brenda and Audrey who are large comical men dressed as women. See below for some links giving examples.
The same article reports it financially beneficial to use physically attractive spokespersons when marketing glamorous products (such as perfumes and luxury cars). See below for a link giving an example:
For a special college project, Hugo had reviewed over 1,000 scientific studies pertaining to “the physical attractiveness phenomenon.” He found ample documentation showing discrimination that is subtle, pervasive, and powerful. Specifically, attractive people are valued more by society than are those who are unattractive. He found that unattractive people are disadvantaged in employment, education, and throughout life. The differences are internalized, resulting in lower self-esteem, inferior social skills, and higher blood pressure. Other results include a significant role in the increase of eating disorders (obesity, bulimia and anorexia) as well as cosmetic surgery by people who often cannot afford it. Recently, Hugo has read that this discrimination is becoming an increasingly important social issue with new developments that include boycotts and lawsuits.
Hugo, a marketing graduate from Oxford Brookes University, has long been disturbed by marketing practices that promulgate the physical attractiveness phenomenon. For example, he has noticed that when comparative advertising is used, a physically attractive person is combined with the “right” product or the right choice and a physically unattractive person with the “wrong” product or choice.
q1. Place yourself in the role of Hugo identify and evaluate the ethical issues that the case presents to him and demonstrate your capability to make an ethically reasoned decision about what actions he should take in this scenario. (80 Marks)
q2. Explain what you found most challenging in the application of ethical theory to make the decision in the case study? (10 Marks)
q3 Reviewing your experience, of the module overall, comment on how your understanding and approach to ethical reasoning has been changed, when reflecting on the following 3 arenas of ethical decision making i.e. Individual, Organisational and Systemic. (10 marks)
q3 Reviewing your experience, of the module overall, comment on how your understanding and approach to ethical reasoning has been changed, when reflecting on the following 3 arenas of ethical decision making i.e. Individual, Organisational and Systemic. (10 marks)
Some pointers:
In QUESTION ONE the case study question can be best answered by using the seven step model applying a Utilitarian, Kantian and Justice approaches.
This module is conceptualised as an opportunity to work through some of our taken for granted assumptions about ethical decision making. Hopefully it has not just been an academic exercise for you. The reflective element in question two and three is designed to enhance the quality of your learning experience. Reflection is more than gaining knowledge. It helps you to: (i) explore the foundations of that knowledge; (ii) strengthen understanding; (iii) increase awareness of the values and attitudes that influence it. The two questions above should guide you through this process as follows:
In QUESTION TWO is designed to help you reflect on the various stages of the process (reading the case, understanding the evaluative method and ethical theories, forming views, reflect on these views and react to them). You should then reach a conceptualisation of this process that distinguishes the ‘integration of knowledge phase’ i.e. understanding the ethical theories and the evaluative technique from the subsequent ‘re-construction and application phase’ i.e. arguing a defensible decision.
In QUESTION THREE, recognises that your ethical reasoning may have changed or been challenged during the course of the module. You are asked to relate this question to the three different arenas of ethical reasoning for business, i.e. choices you could make as an employee of the organisation, choices of organisational policy and procedures and the choices which different economic and social systems seem to offer.
In QUESTION ONE the case study question can be best answered by using the seven step model applying a Utilitarian, Kantian and Justice approaches.
This module is conceptualised as an opportunity to work through some of our taken for granted assumptions about ethical decision making. Hopefully it has not just been an academic exercise for you. The reflective element in question two and three is designed to enhance the quality of your learning experience. Reflection is more than gaining knowledge. It helps you to: (i) explore the foundations of that knowledge; (ii) strengthen understanding; (iii) increase awareness of the values and attitudes that influence it. The two questions above should guide you through this process as follows:
In QUESTION TWO is designed to help you reflect on the various stages of the process (reading the case, understanding the evaluative method and ethical theories, forming views, reflect on these views and react to them). You should then reach a conceptualisation of this process that distinguishes the ‘integration of knowledge phase’ i.e. understanding the ethical theories and the evaluative technique from the subsequent ‘re-construction and application phase’ i.e. arguing a defensible decision.
In QUESTION THREE, recognises that your ethical reasoning may have changed or been challenged during the course of the module. You are asked to relate this question to the three different arenas of ethical reasoning for business, i.e. choices you could make as an employee of the organisation, choices of organisational policy and procedures and the choices which different economic and social systems seem to offer.
