Ethichal aspects in Marketing Management :

Marketing Mix is an important factor that determines the performance of the marketing team. There are “4 Ps” of Marketing Mix viz., Place, Product, Price and Promotion. The unethical issues concerning these “4Ps” are:

Place:

“Place” is the link between the customer and producer, through appropriate delivery channels. Convenient location plays a crucial role   in increasing the sale of the products. As regards banking, the term “place” represents their delivery channel i.e., branch net work, e banking channels like ATMs, Internet, Core Banking Solutions, etc. For the convenience of customers ATMs are also available at off site locations. The place acts as an important factor of the marketing mix, and ensures good customer relationship management.

Unethical practices on account of “Place” as part of marketing mix arises in the following situations: (a) If a branch of a bank is relocated to another area without sufficient notice and time (b) A customer who uses ATMs, Internet banking facility, is denied access to them on account of bank’s failure to provide the services, and thereby the customer is facing inconvenience, loss of money and time.

Product:

“Product” is one of the important components of marketing mix. Product can be in the form of goods or an article or an instrument (in case of financial services), for which the consumer pays a value (price) and expects to get satisfaction/comfort.

If a bank offers a deposit product offering higher interest and suddenly stops offering such type of deposit products without any prior notice, then from the customers’ point of view this could be viewed as unethical practice. Similarly when new loan products with certain value added features are launched, such value additions are offered only for the new loan customers but not for existing loan customers could be viewed as unethical by the existing customers.

Price:

“Price” is another important component of a marketing mix.

Price discrimination is labeled as unethical. For example, A bank, when there is change in the floating interest rates, immediately increases the interest rates for loan accounts for the existing borrowers, however, in case of rate cut, the bank does not reduce the interest rate immediately, is considered as unethical. Another example of unethical practice is, any increase in charges, fees are given immediate effect, however any reduction in charges, fees, etc which would benefit the customers, is not passed on to them immediately.

Promotion:

Reaching out to the customers through effective network and attractive communication is the major role of the marketing mix called “promotion”.

Advertisement is the main component of promoting products. Unethical practices are:

(i) misleading advertisements to attract the clients

(ii) unsolicited telephone calls, e mails, and thereby inconveniencing the clients.